


Children of the Prophecy (English version)

by Kendrix



Category: Neon Genesis Evangelion, Rebuild of Evangelion | Evangelion: New Theatrical Edition
Genre: Gen, Multi, Time Loop, all kinds of unpleasantness the original series also has, but mostly character journey/horror focussed, except Shinji is still recognizably Shinji and things aren't awfully convenient, love dodecahedron
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-02
Updated: 2018-07-06
Packaged: 2018-08-12 14:53:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 33
Words: 356,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7938787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kendrix/pseuds/Kendrix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>My basic plan with this is to take the good old time loop idea... and play it for horror, endless eight style. For once, Shinji is not the culprit - but he's the one who can fix it, leaving us with more or less the same problem. ENGLISH Version, translation of the original German one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 00: [Da Capo]

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, everyone, welcome to Kenny's newest fanfic that isn't so new at all… I'm glad that I finally got around to start translating it. Thanks everybody for taking your time to read this, and greetings to everyone who knows me from evageeks, animexx or elsewhere.
> 
> English is not my mother tongue, so if you speak German, I'd really recommend that you read the original version. Nonetheless, I'm gonna try my best – if you spot any language mistakes, don't hesitate to tell me.
> 
> My basic plan with this is to take the good old time loop idea... and play it for horror, endless eight style. For once, Shinji is not the culprit - but he's the one who can fix it, leaving us with more or less the same problem.
> 
> Or, more conceptually: Most of us know timeloop or "alternate outcome/branching timeline" fics, most are fun, catharsis-inducing and give you a chance to do some real interpretation work on the canon events. Also, you sort of have to do this if you want to write in the setting most of the show takes place (which will be your natural instinct after, well, watching the show and seeing that setting get fleshed out) in since it is more or less completely obliterated by the end. But a downside is that with many (certainly not all, and even then, I don't mean to be bitchy or elitist, again, I mostly enjoy time loops/alternates) of those fics, it either soon becomes apparent that the writer didn't exactly get the ending or has a very cynical interpretation of it and the arguably positive messages it's trying to convey, and/or b), which annoys be significantly more since the apocalypse interpretation can at least be seen as a necessary justification for the time travel: It all turns into one giant Shinji hate fest, one way or another, if they don't flat out replace him with a self-insert, a gary stu, or a vaguely similar-looking Gary Stu that is also a self-insert.
> 
> But if you're just complaining, you're part of the problem, right? So what I thought I'd do was(TM), I'll try to write my own timeloop fic/ the sort I'd like to read, try to make it original and see if other people would like to read that sort of fic, too!
> 
> That, and to create a long love letter to the entirity of this fascinating frachise that has changed so many lives, including mine.
> 
> Warning: This will partially follow the original story, but also Rebuild and later, the ideas of my own sick brain as well. Expect characters from the video games, a few OCs (only in minor roles, though, don't worry), Rebuild spoilers, and all the sort of nasty stuff the original series also has. As for the pairings, well, Shinji's entire harem shows up (I'm not letting a drama source as good as a love dodecahedron slip through my hands), but if you wanna know whom he'll ultimately end up with, you'll have to read this. No all-too disturbing crack pairings or OC pairings, though, so rest assured.
> 
> Oh, and another thing: If you think that Shinji, in either classic series or the Rebuild movies, is a) "a whiny gay pussy who should man up" or b) "A selfish, ingrateful toddler who only thinks of his own gratification, no better than his 2D-Disney-villain-father" or c) "A closet misantrope who secretly craves the obliteration of all life on earth from the dephts of his heart" (Yes, this exists), this fic probably isn't for you. Don't worry, there are plenty of other fics out there! How about "Shinji and Warhammer 40k" or something like that?
> 
> But anyway, I've babbled enough. You guys came for the story, didn't you? So okay, here it is:

Oh I am growing tired

Of allowing you to steal

Everything I have

You're making me feel

Like I was born to service you

But I am growing by the hour

You left us far behind

So we all discard our souls

And blaze through your skies

So unafraid to die

'Cause I was born to destroy you

And I am growing by the hour

And getting strong in every way

You led me on

_\- Muse, 'Hate this and I'll love you'_

**Prologue: 00: [Da Capo]**

The music that could occasionally be heard from that spacious manor no longer surprised anyone;

Every day, if not always at the same time, someone in there would play a western Cello for about half an hour. The manor was large enough, being the property of a man who earned his living as a private teacher for the children of rich parents; The neighbors wouldn't have heard it unless they happened to be in the right corner of their Garden at the right time, and even then, only if they were listening closely enough.

The ones who were most likely to hear it were probably the few old grannies who would sometimes slowly cross the piece of sidewalk next to the during the moment in question, manor aided by their walking frames, although they would rarely think more of it than "Oh, it's the Cello again", assuming they had spent enough time in this small village that appeared to have been randomly thrown between the edgy mountains of japan to have heard the instrument before; The melodies of the string instrument could have been heard for many years, and if someone had ever bothered to take their time to listen in regular intervals, they would have noticed that the unseen musician had steadily improved.

Of course, nobody actually had the time for such a thing as the sound of classical music that seemed to be randomly coming from a teacher's house. "Perhaps some of these rich kids is getting Cello lessons" a few might think, supposing they had both knowledge of the manor's owner and the capacity of identifying the instrument as such, with the keywords being "a few"; Even in this isolated, insignificant town that had been barely grazed by the night apocalyptic consequences of the second impact, these hectic, uncertain times had left everyone busy with their own worries, barring them of any time to listen to mediocre cello music.

Now and then, someone would ask, a young child, a curious stranger.

"I…I don't know."

"That's where that private teacher lives, isn't it?"

"Yeah, I think it is."

"Oh, yes… One of my husband's friends has a friend who knows him. That's got to be that kid…"

"What kid? I didn't know he had any children."

"It's not his. I think he's the son of some filthy rich government official who left the kid in his care."

"Official? I thought he was a scientist…"

"Wasn't he in the military?"

"Why isn't that guy looking after his son himself, anyway? That's quite some neglectful father…"

"But… that boy is bound to have a mother. Why isn't _she_ taking care of him?"

"Because she can't. As far as I know, she's been dead for quite a while now."

"She died? How come?"

"I don't really know, but…"

"What?"

"There is… something like a crazy rumor. As the story goes, this so-called father used his own wife as a guinea pig."

"What? He murdered his wife and then abandoned his own child, on top of that? What a goddamn _bastard!_ "

Sure enough, the populace hardly saw anything of that official-slash-scientist-slash-bastard's son, save for the cello music. His guardian, being a private teacher, tutored him at home, which was probably what he was paid for in the first place.

Even _if_ the residents had spotted him when he went to buy groceries or something like that, there was nothing to him that would make the eyes of the busy, hurried crowd cling to him or betray him as the mysterious cellist from the neighborhood.

He was a nondescript boy who walked around in simple, loose-fitting trousers and even simpler T-shirts, sometimes white, sometimes blue, nothing that stood out in particular. He wasn't exactly an especially impressive individual, not too tall, not too short, not fat, but not muscular either, with plain vanilla dark brown hair worn in a plain vanilla haircut.

The only thing about him that might have merited a glance were his eyes.

They presented themselves to the world in a deep, pure blue that was usually found in foreigners alone, the color the oceans had before second impact, when they still contained life of which we knew less than about the depths of outer space; blue like the skies, like that which was separated from all things earthly and material.

Nevertheless, no one ever noticed these eyes of his, for that would have required for the observer to take a closer look at his face, and as stated before, there wasn't much to him that could have served as motivation to do that.

Everyone was busy talking about the ongoing restoration of the oceans, the irresponsible spending of tax money, these strange serial murders in the new capital of Tokyo-3, while no one knew why it was supposed to become the capital at all since they already had Tokyo-2, or why ridiculous sums were spent to build fortifications over there, so no one even took notice of one mostly inconspicuous boy when he went to buy something, showed himself at public events (which he only did because his teacher told him) or just went to get the mail.

Getting the mail… that was exactly what he had been supposed to do on that fateful day. To get the mail and put it on the table so his teacher could read it later. It was his teacher who read the mail – _all_ of it.

No one ever wrote the boy any letters, neither that scientist-father of his nor anyone else. How was anyone supposed to write to him, anyway, there was hardly anyone who even knew that he was here.

No one had ever written him a letter.

Until now.

Until the day when this, along with an infinite number of other things, changed forever… on the day where his life took a 180-degree turn.

The day on which he opened the mailbox and read a word that some part of him had always waited for, even when his mind had long since understood that it was futile.

This was the day where he found, addressed at none other than himself, the single word

"Come"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) Hi, welcome to the annotations! Here, I will supply you with multiple trivia over the course of the story. I'm happy if anyone reads this garbage at all, but remember that reviews are gestures of LOVE and always very motivating
> 
> (2) "Da Capo" is an instruction found on music sheets which means repeating the song from the beginning. Some times people use it as a compliment/cheer after watching a play in a theater - It's like saying the play is so good that they'd like to see it all over again.
> 
> (3) The Evangelion frachise is owned by Khara/Gainax, and I'm not earning a single Euro with this.
> 
> (4) The next, or more accurately, the first proper chapter will be called 01: [Cracks in a Wall] Don't worry, stuff will be significantly longer than this from now on.


	2. Act I: Exposition: [You are (not) alone]  01: [Cracks In A Wall]

_Down on your knees, you'll be left behind_   
_This is the beginning_   
_Watch what you think, they can read your mind_   
_This is the beginning_   
_I got my mark, see it in my eyes_   
_This is the beginning_   
_Well, my reflection I don't recognize_   
_This is the beginning_

_We think we've climbed so high,_   
_On all the backs we've condemned_   
_We fave our consequence,_   
_This is the beginning of the end_

_You wait your time, you'll be last in line_   
_This is the beginning_   
_Get out of the way, 'cause I'm getting mine_   
_This is the beginning_   
_God helps the ones that can help themselves_   
_It may be too late as far as I can tell_

_We think we've come so far,_   
_On all the lies we depend_   
_We've seen our consequence_   
_This is the beginning of the end_

_-Nine inch Nails, 'The Beginning of the end'._

* * *

It all started with a crack in a pane of glass.

An inconsiderable, small line that couldn't have been noticed unless you spent a while glancing into the glass at just the right angle. The dim, red light of this place did not help either, much like glass panel's dimensions. Any person who might have entered the not exactly small hall was far more likely to direct their attention at the many strangecontraptions, laboratory tables and glass tubes that filled the room to bother inspecting the glass panel that formed it northern wall for cracks.

But just that it was hard to notice did not mean that the crack wasn't there; quite the opposite, there was more and more of it, since it offered the pressure of the yellowishly-reddish-orange liquid behind it a working point, thus growing steadily; It spread, slowly but continuously, like a bud opening itself. At first, one would have had to look away and come back after a while to as much as notice a change, but it didn't stop, and it kept happening faster and faster with every new crack and every time they branched and connected, until their expansion reached the point where it could have been heard if anyone had been present in this place at that time; there was a progressional crescendo of creaking and clangor as the glass inexorably cracked and burst.

No one was present to heart the noise, not to speak of counteracting its source; And yet, there were two small, pale hands ready to press themselves against the snowflake- or spider-web-like epicenter of the cracks to make the wall of glass shatter for good.

* * *

"Protein walls four to seventeen, clear."

"One to three are clear as well."

"Initializing MAGI self-diagnosis-subroutines in five, four, three, two…"

As one could effortlessly tell by the voices of the personnel and the typing noises produced by their owners, the main complex of the Central Dogma was brimming with buzzing activity; Strings of Numbers hurried across the large screen that had claimed almost an entire wall of the huge hall as its territory, and the various, multi-layered holographic images that appeared to be floating in front of it also appeared to be in plenty of motion; The bulk of the 'action', however, took place on the various platforms above and around the hardware of the supercomputers which ultimately administrated all of this enormous city.

Neo-Tokyo 3 – A monument of many things, first and foremost for humanity, be it for its fear, its progress or its allegedly indomitable will to live.

The proud heart piece of this bastion of technology, this steel-plated fortress, was the MAGI-System, an array of three biological supercomputers – the first, if no longer the only ones of their kind.

And atop the physical components of these machines, sat several platforms where, more or less ordered by rank by the altitude of their workplaces, the various employees of NERV could be found in their mostly beige-colored, tight-fitting uniforms, eagerly maltreating their keyboards, going about their work and, now and then, holding small conversations.

Now, a routine system check-up like this didn't demand for the presence of the Commander or even the department heads; The highest platform that was still occupied was the workspace of the three technicians Shigeru Aoba, Makoto Hyuuga and Maya Ibuki.

The latter, a young woman with a short haircut, had apparently just finished with something and was now leaning back a little in her chair, apparently somewhat exhausted.

"MAGI-Selfdiagnosis-checkup completed. No anomalies detected. All systems seem to be functioning perfectly fine."

"Good." Commented Aoba, a tall, long-haired man. "But don't forget that all defense-related systems must be checked twice."

"Checking, checking, checking…" repeated Hyuuga, a bespectacled male with large, dark eyes, as he initialized a level-two-diagnosis of the afore-mentioned parts by hitting a few buttons on his console. "Everything's gotta be checked double and triple, it's like that's all we ever do nowadays… Before the accident, we'd at least get to analyze some test data from unit zero from time to time, but now… "

With a sigh, Hyuuga turned back to his diagnosis program.

"Oh, please, don't even remind the accident…" asked Ibuki, seemingly feeling a little disturbed at the mere thought. "I still can't believe what happened there… The laboratory in question is still completely in ruins, our only pilot is still in intensive care, and the Commander is still wearing those thick bandages on his hands…"

"Well, at least some of us have something to do now… we've spent the last few months doing little but testing the equipment, and even the EVAs aren't doing much more than catching dust…" replied Hyuuga. "I wonder how much longer we'll have to wait for an actual deployment…"

"In your place, I'd be careful with my wishes, since they might come true pretty soon…" Aoba stated.

"How come…?" inquired Ibuki, sounding mildly uneasy.

"Well, they seem to have sent the head of the tactical operations department here after she had been stationed in Germany for years… As far as I know, she will be arriving tomorrow. Her Name is Katsuragi Misato."

"Katsuragi, hm…" Maya mused. "I think I've heard Dr. Akagi mention that name before…"

"Oh, so the two know each other?"

"Yes, I do. She's an old friend from my college Days."

Ibuki, much like Hyuuga, who hadn't expected such an answer to his question, quickly turned around as she heard her superior's voice behind herself, while Aoba also turned his head towards the thirty-year-old woman who had just stepped onto the platform.

If one had to describe Dr. Akagi's looks with a single word, it would have been "professional", especially when she appeared in her white lab coat with a notepand in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other like she did now.

Her hair was light blond and ended just above her shoulders, but her eyebrows revealed that this was not its natural color. Furthermore, she was wearing a black, tubular miniskirt and a light-blue top made from some glossy material closed with a zipper that was adorned with a large, ring-like ornament to make it easier to open. A single birthmark sat under one of her green eyes, emblazoning it.

"Good afternoon." She greeted, taking a sip out of her NERV-logo-enhanced cup. "How is it going…?"

"We just finished the level-two diagnosis." Reported Maya.

"Very Well. Let me see." After Maya had moved both herself and her chair aside, Dr. Akagi bent forward to enter a few short function commands into her console and leave the space free again after pressing the enter-button.

"So far, everything seems to be as it should. Continue with level three."

Just as the head of the technical department was about to take her leave to devote herself to some of the other numerous part of her broad spectrum of work, when she perceived a beeping noise from one of the consoles – it was the internal phone line.

As Hyuuga immediately picked up the phone, Dr. Akagi narrowed her eyes – There weren't any more messages to be expected today, at least none that would be relayed here, but apparently, something was happening, since her underling gave off a quite startled impression.

"Dr. Akagi…" he began after he had hung up the phone.

"There was an error prompt…"

"During the MAGI's checks?"

"No, it's coming from… Terminal Dogma, block four, section C…"

For Hyuuga, that was nothing more than the designation of a place beyond his security clearance; He had never been down there, but since he, like everybody in this institution, knew of Lillith and the self-destruction system, it wasn't a far leap to assume that whatever was down there had to be somehow important, thus explaining his visible perturbation;

Dr. Akagi, on the other hand, knew _exactly_ what was down there… and why it technically shouldn't be possible to get an error prompt from there. As for the objects that were kept in that laboratory, she could only say that she despised them. But that's all that room was: The place where some of them were kept. From time to time, she would experiment on one of these things or cut them apart, but most of the time, the majority of them did nothing but float through a huge tank.

Even if there were a multitude of utile uses planned for them in the future, right now, only one of these things served any sort of function, and that particular exemplar wasn't even down there.

Dr. Akagi couldn't imagine what sort of error might have occurred with these things, as they were, as mentioned before, merely being stored.

So, whatever was happening there was worrying her all the more… because she didn't have the faintest idea of what it could be.

"Maya, could you and the others please proceed without me?"

After receiving a few uncertain nods from her co-workers, the leader of project E immediately put herself into motion, emptied her cup in a single gulp, deposited it on a console and promptly departed. As little as she liked it, those things, weren't exactly unimportant for the commander's plans – much like herself, as she mentally added with a bitter smile which she only allowed herself when her colleagues could only have seen it if they had been capable of gazing through the back of her skull.

Hurriedly, she paced through the corridors of the NERV-Headquarters, on her way to the Elevator that should lead her to her destination.

On one of the lower levels, she left it in favor of a dimly lit, darkly-lined hallway; Next, she'd have to follow it to another, special elevator for authorized personnel only which could only be made to move with her security card, her fingerprints, her iris- and voice scan, or alternatively, with those of a similarity high-ranked NERV-employee.

But she didn't even come that far.

Just after she had left several of these dark corridors behind her and finally closed in on her destination, she was made to witness a noise which she could only describe as a spine-chilling scream.

Even with NERV being a military organization with its Lieutenants, Captains and Commanders, the scientist had never thought that she would ever actually pull the gun which she had only ever carried because the directives had demanded it out of her lab coat's pocket, not to speak of taking its safety off.

But she still did it – Fortunately, as she should later conclude after stepping onto the scene that awaited her beyond the corridor's next curve.

It was a sight capable of freezing even the hardy scientist into a pillar of salt: It almost bore a resemblance to some grotesque work of art, with all the red spots, sprinkles and splatters in the corners and edges of the hallway and the large, irregularly-shaped stains on the floor.

And the stech… the stink, the smell of Blood. She ought to be used to it after working with LCL for so many years, but in combination with the images that could be perceived within the cone of light flowing from the wide open elevator's doors, it did not fail to take its effect for once in a very long time.

On the floor, there was a man in a NERV-Uniform… without any head.

A co-worker of his could be found next to the left wall from the hips downwards, and from there upwards, next to the right wall, his midsection having been severed as smoothly as with a guillotine.

The fellow in the elevator had been completely reduced to bits and pieces, with part of his leg lying in the doorframe, thus keeping the elevator's doors from shutting.

And as if all of this hadn't been enough, there was a shivering, dark-haired NERV-employee cowering next to the right wall, aghast, staring at her superior.

"Why did you have to come here… Run, oh my god, RUN!"

Without waiting for the fake blonde's reaction, the thoroughly terrified young woman used her own gun to fire multiple bullets at something beyond the light cone from the open elevator doors – She never hit anything. It wasn't that she hadn't aimed well enough, oh no, nothing that simple: The bullets appeared to have… ricocheted? And what was with that flash of light?

When the young woman ultimately lost her nerves and, still firing, charged the mysterious _something_ in the corner, Dr. Akagi was instantly able to tell what it was.

That pattern of concentric octagons, like an almost invisible Wall in the air…

An… AT-Field? There was something with an AT-Fiel in this room…?

An… Angel? In here?

The you woman kept shooting and shooting, but before Dr. Akagi got any chance to say anything to make her retreat, the arms of the dark-haired employee were already lying at her feet along with her pistol, leaving her with two madly-bleeding stumps and severed arteries, which apparently hadn't been enough; The woman's wild screaming was only ended by her decapitation, after which her body simply sunk to the ground, expanding the "panorama" with yet another pool of blood.

There had been that… light again, the AT-Field… An AT-Field… used as offensive weapon, like an ultimate knife… The being probably activated it in such a manner that it would materialize where it wanted to cut, completely severing what lie on its inside from its outside, thus cutting through anything on that edge…

Fascinating…

Akagi felt nausea rising within herself. Some part of her usually dominant logical mind that still happened to be functioning urged her to turn around and run for her life, but her knees were as warm butter and her feet were glued to the ground, held in place by utmost horror, but also by a certain curiosity, for whatever caused this massacre was now showing itself.

At first, something like a … child's foot stepped from the darkness, then, the entire thing.

The head of the technical department swallowed hard.

This… this was impossible. That which she was seeing right now simply could not be.

Without intricate preparation, these things weren't even stable enough to withstand contact with air without immediately beginning to disintegrate – so far, humanity had yet to become nature's equal in the discipline of keeping meat fresh.

This thing couldn't… be here, it absolutely shouldn't be in any condition to project an AT-Field, much less to use it intelligently…

It shouldn't even be able to move, not to speak of …escaping in any way.

It… it wasn't supposed to have a soul, damnit!

And yet, there it stood. An yet incomplete exemplar, whose outer form resembled a nine- to ten-year-old human female, with the head of a NERV-Employee in its hand, and a thin, inhuman smile on its lips. And it was directly looking at her.

Still in the process of realizing that the entity had been fixating her, she immediately turned around and ran for her life at a numbing speed that she wouldn't have thought herself capable of.

Somehow, she managed to pull herself past the next curve without dying, immediately smashing a panel of glass that was integrated into the wall with a yellow-black frame around it, pushing the red button beneath far down.

Infront of her eyes, an emergency hatch closed, sealing the corridor she had come from.

The scientist immediately let her gun sink into her lab coat's pocket to pull out her cellphone instead.

"Akagi here. Locate my mobile and send me section 2 ASAP… And put me through to the commander's office…"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) I'm partially following after Rebuild here, where Misato and most the NERV-staff know about Lillith and a related self-destruct-mechanism. I'm doing it this way because I'd like to use certain scenes.
> 
> (2) Of course, everything will be explained in due time, but as in the series, you'll have to wait until the later parts…
> 
> (3) Look forward to the next chapter: 02: [The Thing That Should Not Be]


	3. 02: [The Thing That Should Not Be]

"How is that even possible?"

"I don't know either, subcommander. That is precisely what I am trying to find out."

"Then do it fast." Ikari's deep voice ultimately interjected. "…It needs to be terminated at any cost. Once you are finished with that, I expect that you immediately dissect it and inspect the rest."

"Understood, Sir."

"And don't let any Information seep through. We will present the incident as the work of well-prepared terrorists."

The Silhouettes of the two men, along with that of the desk in their vicinity, were all that could be seen in the vast room that was mostly formed by large glass walls.

Roof and floor were covered in complicated patterns.

"Ikari…" began the elder of the two men who was standing next to his sitting colleague.

"How on earth does this fit into our scenario? This incident is too close… too close to the time of the prophecy…"

* * *

When the emergency hatch opened again – an Interface panel that was half torn out of the wall explained why – the child found itself confronted with an entire corridor full of armed men.

A few were surprised at the appearance of their targets, perhaps recognized familiar features in its face or wondered why they were facing a child, but as soon as the first of them began shooting, the rest of them followed suit.

There was something about the being's expression that seemed…off, not… quite right, that awakened the desire to shoot it into Swiss cheese.

The only things that actually got filled with holes, however, were the walls and the floor, perhaps even the ceiling; The thing succeeded in repelling all projectiles with its AT-Field.

It didn't twitch, it didn't budge, it failed to show the smallest sign of being scared by the gunfire, it just stood there and stared, without even blinking.

"Go on, Fire! Fire!"

"We…We don't have any ammunition left, chief…"

That was the moment in which the being resumed walking. It simply strode through the corridor, without even acknowledging the men's desperate tries to safe themselves by throwing their pistol or similar reckless moves.

They burst around it like balloons, leaving only smithereens in this world.

In a similar manner to the emergency hatch, elevator doors opened for it, the doors of an elevator which it had defaced with the blood of two ordinary NERV-employees. They shot and shot, but in the end, none of them remained.

A couple which seemed to have heard the evacuation order for this section too late stumbled across the corner.

The entity's leer widened.

* * *

"All personnel is being advised to stay in their respective workplaces and evacuate the public areas as fast as possible. In addition to that, the following sections are no longer to be entered:…"

"I-I told you! Something has to have happened… " Ibuki anxiously told her co-workers while looking at the ceiling as if she wanted to stare at the announcements that could be heard above their heads.

* * *

"No, that's no good. We'll only end up wasting ammunition and personnel. The readings show that the AT-Field isn't active at all times. So, the thing only projects it when it consciously wants that. Try shooting it from behind or from the side while it's distracted. "

Dr. Akagi, who had sought out a quiet spot for herself and her laptop, was phoning the security men from some dark corner of the HQ. "And I'd recommend that you neither miss nor let you be spotted. That's not the sort of enemy that will leave you any second chances."

She typed something while she listened to the person at the other end of the line.

"No. I'd prefer it if you sent me the Data from the surveillance systems. What is that thing doing?"

When the picture on her screen showed her the way which the being had taken so far, Dr. Akagi was perplexed.

The thing… didn't seem to be heading downwards.

"Of course. After all, it was down in Terminal Dogma to begin with. If it had displayed the behavioral patterns of an angel, all of us would no longer…"

She couldn't believe it.

"But what's it doing? It… It's moving _upwards._ But that way it's taking… those sections it's crossing… It's almost like it wants to…"

* * *

And then, the door opened, and it stood directly before Fuyutsuki, marking the floor of the sheer endless-seeming office with its naked, blood-smeared feet, undeviatedly headed towards the two men.

The naked, immature body wouldn't have amounted to more than a pale, flesh-collored streak if observed from afar, if not for the still wet hair clinging to its face, covering its head like a helmet.

The scent of LCL was deeply inwrought into its substance, intensified by the fresh splatters of blood.

Red sprinkles on white flesh – and the head of an unfortunate security staff member, whose eyes were still opened to their widest even though there was nothing but the whites to be seen in them, gripped at the hair by the entity's delicate-looking hands.

The tiny feet's improbably sure firm steps created a low, splatting noise, courtesy of the liquid sticking to them;

Technically, it ought to be unable to walk, regardless of its ability to aquire a mind or lack thereof:; when they had activated the last clone, they had to pump it full with a multitude of chemicals to make the untouched muscles usable, and even that would have been impossible if they hadn't stored the clones in a basin with the very source of life as their preservative agent; Under normal circumstances, unused muscles tended to deteriorate and regress to an absolute minimum.

But there it stood.

Not just standing, but walking towards them.

The thing that should not be.

Fuyutsuki instinctive backed off;

Unlike Ikari.

The commander just stood there, without the slightest change in his expression.

He displayed neither fear nor disgust, not for the blood, and neither for the severed head; After he had managed to get use to staring into an entire tank filled with such perversions on regular basis without feeling nausea, there was nothing left that could possibly unsettle him, not even the thought of having sold his own body to two certain ladies in exchange for their loyalty.

In the first place, it hadn't been the nature or the state of these objects that had initially affected him, but the fact that he had personally wrapped each and every of their skulls in his wife's face.

But he'd managed it. He'd managed to reply that Yui would have understood, every single time his subordinate had stated that she would have been horrified.

She would have done the same for him. She, too, would have endured the sight of these clones, sold her body, burned the earth and torn the sky asunder.

She would have done the same for him. Of that, he was completely certain.

He just _knew_ that she would have done the same for him.

Oh god, he _hoped_ that she would have done the same for him.

Despite his subordinate's worried glances, Ikari stood in his place without batting an eyelash, and stared at the Perversion.

And the Perversion lifted the head it had left almost neglectfully lowered until now, and stared right back with its crimson eyes, twisting the corners of its mouth into some mutation of a smirk.

So, it actually seemed to possess intelligence, just as Dr. Akagi had said earlier.

"What do you want?"

Ikari's deep, coarse voice echoed through the room.

He was already well aware of the danger posed by the entity, but if it was actually intelligent, attempting to communicate with it might delay it long enough for the security to arrive; At very least, it might increase his chances of finding a suitable opportunity to shoot it stone dead.

And as a matter of fact, he succeeded: It did not kill him.

It answered, it communicated, defying the multitude of reasons why it should be far from being capable of such; not before receiving sufficient "programming" beforehand. Where on earth could it have gotten any concept of human communication, much less knowledge of their language?

Still, as impossible as it was, it spoke.

The thing that should not be spoke words that should not be:

{{I want _you_.}}

No matter how inconceivable it seemed that the thing was talking _at all,_ or _what_ it was talking about, the single most astonishing thing was _how_ it talked.

It wasn't the first being to have stolen the gentle, ethereal voice of Ikari's wife, but each of its words seemed to be steeped in reverberance.

Not immediately, but relatively fast, he realized _why._

He heard the words that were coming from its mouth… but he could also hear it inside of his head, as some sort of resonance beyond the deepest layers of his self, where there hadn't been anything left but rot in a very long time now, as if it was something he knew very, very well, and also something that knew _him_ very well.

It was as if it could touch his innermost without having to penetrate his skin… a bad premonition scurried through his mind.

Could it be…?

The child made one more step forwards.

Their eyes met.

{{We meet at last… Man from beyond the glass…}}

Ikari could hear his subordinate breathe a silent "…What on earth…". This degree of consciousness was indeed worrying, especially with the thing possessing memories of events that had transpired before it had acquired this sudden intelligence.

Was this the result of a longer process?

Would… others follow? Given what he had intended to do with these things, the existence of this being had the potential to blow a torpedo through all of his plans, if not cost him his position…

So shortly before the promised time, before his only chance to see _her_ again… _He would not._

He would not allow this.

Ikaris hand was firmly gripping the fireacrm in his jacket's pocket.

{{I have come to show you my gratitude. Thank you.}}

Before Ikari had any chance to make sense of these words, the silence inside the office ripped to shreds by a deafening sound while its origin blew part of the glass wall behind him, but first and foremost the escaped test subject's head to the tiniest of smithereens, generously spraying Ikari with blood since he hadn't even put his arms up to cover his face.

He wasted no time with things such as staring into the air in shock, instead sending a scrutinizing glance between the blood splatters on his glasses, all the way down to the being.

It was only when he had made sure that it had stopped moving and had a steadily spreading blood stain beneath its crushed skull, that he turned in the direction from which the shot had come.

The one standing in front of him was none other than Dr. Akagi, atypically equipped with a large gun which she carried with the aid of a large strap that she wore on top of her lab coat – She'd been farsighted enough to use heavy, armor-piercing projectiles to make sure to eradicate the enemy on her first try.

"Looks like I saved your life." She stated, almost a little amused, before she quickly puller her phone from her pocket and flipped it open, again completely serious.

"It's me. Disruptive factor eliminated. Handle the "cleanup" as I detailed earlier. And send me a code blue quarantine vessel to the commander's office. "

After she had closed her communication device again, a few instants of silence followed, in which everyone involved stepped closer to the small body on the floor to inspect it closer.

In the end, Fuyutsuki was the first to ask the big question: "What do you think …was the cause?"

"That's what I hope to find out by analyzing the body…"

"Then, I want those tests carried out without delay." Ikari ordered. "But at first, I want you to check all remaining clones for anomalies and terminate all recently created specimens. That is going to cost us some time, but it is better than risking another incident like this one. "

"Understood." The woman confirmed. "Does the order to check all remaining clones extend to the currently active one?"

Ikari didn't get to reply to that question. Something else captured his attention.

At first, there was only a minute twitching that might have been lost to a less alert person, but at very least when the hair sprang forth, everyone present had clearly understood that the being at their feet wasn't as dead as they'd like it to be.

Of all sudden, the entity's hair seemed to have hit a sudden growth spurt; New, wet, light blue hair presented itself to the light.

And that wasn't to be the last transformation.

It goes without saying that Ikari immediately pulled his gun and fired, but this time, the being was prepared and effortlessly deflected the bullet with its AT-Field.

Watching the octagonal patterns fade again, none of the tree people in this room could stop the entity from rising again.

But it wasn't just standing up, it _changed_ as it did so.

The entire body appeared to be soft like half-molten butter, as if the arms could elongate themselves just by hanging down against gravity, as if the legs could first shrink and then stretch just because they moved from a crouched into a standing position.

Whatever was in this body appeared to be capable of shaping it to suit its wishes.

And not only that: The flesh on its chest and head appeared to be flowing as fell, smoothening and filling up its wounds, reforming the eye which the blond scientist's shot had blown away, using it to stare at them before the eyeball had been framed by flesh and made to share a center of focus with the other one.

When the being stood upright, it was fully regenerated and had taken the form of a seven- or eighteen year old young woman with long, blue hair.

One could still see trances of the original pageboy haircut, like the bangs hanging into the forehead or the strands adorning the cheeks, with those continuing much further downwards now.

The thing did not leave the scientists any chance to hold it back in any way, but immediately charged the hole which Dr. Akagi had created in the glass walls earlier.

* * *

The following analysis yielded absolutely no results.

None at all.

Calling their states normal wouldn't have been right, but no test results beyond the expected parameters could be found, neither in the First Child, whose bodily functions had been under meticulous surveillance, as well as constantly being recorded in the NERV hospital's intensive care section, nor in any other of the clones. Absolutely nothing had changed.

What hadn't been found either, however, was the escaped subject's corpse.

After the events that had transpired the possibility of the being having survived falling out of the window and rolling off a majority of the pyramid was a very real danger, even if the following lack of cut-up corpses seemed to disprove it.

Dr. Akagi's opinion on the matter was that it must have disintegrated before it could be found.

Since the total damage amounted to a broken glass tube and, what was much less of a problem at NERV than it would have been everywhere else, the lives of 23 employees, and none of the many components needed for the even greater multitude of plans, the commander and his deputy decided to just carry on with the scenario, and since the time of the prophecy hadn't come yet, they had little problems at selling their terrorist-attack cover-up story to their superiors – soon, everything seemed to be going its usual way.

It was only much later that those involved would learn what sort of shadow had just fallen on this world…

* * *

"Then you have…already sent for him, Ikari?"

"Yes. Captain Katsuragi is going to pick him up."

"I suppose that means…"

"Yes, Fuyutsuki, it won't be long now… It's time."

* * *

"Whaaat?" the German girl in the yellow dress complained, placing her hands onto her hips.

"Why did it have to happen in _Japan_ of all places? That's like, on the other side of the world! You're not being serious, are you, Kaji-san?"

"Unfortunately, I am." The unshaven young man answered, his slight grin suggesting that he was somewhat better informed than his young companion. "Looks like it's time."

"Well, if that's the case, then I fear that our chances of survival are really, really slim, with the only properly trained pilot on this planet being stuck _over here_ while some clueless amateurs are being sent out in unreliable prototypes!"

* * *

"It it ti-ime, it is ti-ime…."

The surprisingly blithe twin-tailed, glasses-wearing girl's strange sing-song blended into the wild mix of English and Russian words, flowing from the silent corner she was standing in.

* * *

"Yes, I know, Mr. Lorenz. "stated the broadly smiling boy with his seemingly perpetually joy-drenched tenor. "It's time, isn't it? Somehow, the thought of returning to that place feels strange to me now…"

He leant out of the window to savor the cool, nocturne air, before directing his gaze at the moon.

The silver orb's light fell over the completely flat heathlands of northern Germany that seemed to go on forever beyond the large mansion which had been built with the rusty-red bricks typical for this region.

Although, it probably didn't quite go on _that_ far; The salty scent which the wind would occasionally blow over her betrayed that the Baltic sea wasn't all too far.

As a semi-enclosed body of water high on the northern hemisphere and thus far away from Antarctica, the contamination it had suffered compared to most others was relatively mild, tough it had still taken the massive filtration sites which had been erected somewhere between Denmark and Scandinavia (aided by many smaller institutions on the coasts of all adjacent countries) until the present day to return a fair part of it to its original blue color, at least close to the coasts. The water still didn't provide any suitable habitat for much more than plankton, microorganisms and very few particularly tough mussels and jellyfish; For the fish, some of which were still being preserved in special aquaria, ever to return, was still going to take quite a while.

"I think I am going to miss it…" the boy commented.

"I mean… the fragrance of the seashore."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) This will be continued in the next chapter 03: [Angel attack], where we shall finally meet (or well, rejoin) our charming protagonist! From now on, the chapters will, save for a few exceptions, be considerably larger, so I ask for your patience. University tends to keep me quite busy. Also, before I can translate this, I need to actually write it and the ppl on the German site I originally published this on are also waiting for the next chapter...


	4. 03: [Angel Attack]

_One Day, you see a strange little girl look at you_

_One Day, you see a strange little girl feeling blue_

_Tori Amos, 'Strange Little Girl'_

* * *

Normally, one would picture a city as the domain of brisk activity.

People created noise, and accordingly, where many people lived, corresponding quantities of noise were to be expected.

But not in this city.

There were no people left living here at all.

The tall buildings that had once stood upright piercing the sky now lay aslope and half-sunken within the deep-red waters; there wasn't a single window that hadn't been shattered.

The ruins, as well as parts of the ground, whenever a sufficiently low tide allowed them to be seen, were thoroughly covered in the red goop that had invariably replaced the once deeply blue ocean.

Everything was smeared with it, resembling the inside of a bloody wound, a comparison which could be unscrupulously extended to the pungent stench of that literal dead sea.

Since the garish-red, opaque surface didn't offer as much as a proper place to stand, the last time some lost soul had strayed far enough from their path to wind up in this desolate wasteland had been years ago.

Once, this had been the blooming capital city of Old Tokyo, the most populous city in the world, and now, it was completely deserted.

There was a certain depressing quality to it. Sure, an empty city was always a depressing sight, but one that also tended to convey a sense of danger. It was deathly silent, as if not even sound waves dared to go there… And yet there was a silent, naked figure with long, odd-colored hair standing on some half-destroyed building's rooftop, watching as something set the red water into motion.

Something _huge_.

Solid, bright red as a firefighter's car, the surface's lack of transparency didn't allow for as much as a blurry outline to be seen, but whatever it was, it existed, and its movements left a wake trailing it.

It proceeded like a juggernaut, on and on, unrelenting, sliding between the remains of the sunken city.

The being's trail formed one perfect, straight line, not once was it forced to turn to evade an obstacle, simply moving just past everything, sending its call into the world.

Of course, those calls were not to be compared with human communication – that was something this existence had no need of. Nor did it use such a simple carrier as noise, neither did it transfer words, information or any sort of knowledge.

The fourth messenger's voice was much closer to a domineering, overwhelming presence, resembling the low yet loud ringing of a bronze bell, a vibration, infecting the air, inviting resonance.

Closing on the shore as a pioneer tentatively treading on new land would have done, it presented the beings beyond it with the riddle of determining whether "Life form" would have been an appropriate appellation for the being that traveling through the depths, for it existed in a very different manner than any of the creatures beyond the water's surface.

It was as foreign to this world as this world was foreign to itself – It was a remnant of a world that could have been, that _should_ have been, if only it hadn't been forestalled by the advent of _this_ world.

Left on its own, it strived to come and get the land that had been promised unto it.

Then again, it wasn't _all_ alone – The being on the rooftop could perceive the messenger's calls, even reach into its plane of existence, but it chose not to make itself known to the diving giant.

Its soul was hardly any different from those of the beings that had robbed it of its birthright, but unlike them, its soul's dominion wasn't limited to one simple, brittle form, as little as a creature with wings was bound to the ground beneath its feet.

It had cast off that form a long, long time ago.

So it came that the patterns of the walls that encompassed all of that could be summarized as "Sachiel, Angel of Water" reflected but one single proclamation, needing but one heavy, lithic word to express what the dwellers of the city would have needed six for:

…..I AM COMING …..TO GET YOU…

On the shore, where both the steady burbling of the waves and the unnerving, ever-present chirping of the cicadas announced the starting point of a very different world, the UN's tanks formed an orderly line, long since ready to fight, waiting for the unidentified high-energy object which had recently been spotted by satellite to reveal itself at last.

Alone the fact that _both_ sides were under the assumption that they would be fighting simple monsters was enough to show how little the nearing battle would have to do with virtues, ideals, honor, or even 'right' and 'wrong': It was a fight for stark survival, governed by the animalistic, egotistic drive towards self-preservation that was inherent in all forms of life.

Intelligent beings possessed the freedom to defy it, but whenever the choice was "a stranger's life or my own" most would find themselves lacking in noble motivations to keep their minds from placing itself in the service of their lower impulses.

Because there was no other function left to it.

Because there was no peaceful solution to be found, no practicable coexistence to be attained.

* * *

One would be mistaken to think that the territory of silence had its borders next to those of the abandoned city – If the announcement reverberating from a multitude of speakers at every major concentration of _intact_ buildings was to be believed, the entire region was in a state of emergency, and thus in the process of being evacuated.

The announcement and the wind were about the only things out here that seemed to be making any sort of sound. The only things in the entire metropolis.

No one was driving cars, no one was playing music, and no one was indulging in a multitude of mostly trivial conversations. All shops were closed, as were all blinds, each and every security lattice was in place, and occasionally, even barricaded doors and windows could be seen.

Of all sudden, the populace's unending thirst to sell each other about anything they could think of seemed to be fully quenched.

And that in a city this huge…

Empty cities _were_ a depressing sight.

Even the train station, usually a hectic place of coming and going, now bore serious resemblance to a Ghost town straight out of a clichéd western – The trains were exactly where they were supposed to be, but none of them was moving a single millimeter. The only advice the numerous displays could offer was that both every single incoming and all departing trains were canceled without exception.

Again, everything seemed completely deserted, which posed the question of "why".

Sure, the style of the writing on the various displays and advertising posters suggested that this city was located somewhere in Japan, where earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and the like were no rarity.

Except – The earth wasn't trembling. There were no streams of lava to be seen, no deluge, no blazing inferno, no thunderous tornado.

The afternoon sun drenched the station in an intense white as the tracks lay covered in complete silence.

Complete silence, except for the steadily repeating announcements, the chirping of the cicadas, and the hurried steps of a lone boy.

His hasty movements made it easy to see that this unexpected situation positively unnerved him; Again and again, he stopped to check his surroundings uneasily.

His unassuming, unimposing form would have betrayed his nervousness to any observer's first glance; He was carrying a large, plain brown bag, obediently wearing his school uniform even though nothing resembling a day in class was awaiting him here.

The uniform in question consisted on some unadorned trousers made of black fabric, and a loose-fitting, white, short-sleeved shirt which its owner had neatly tucked into the latter; underneath, part of his indigo undershirt could be glimpsed.

Even his orderly, yet mostly inconspicuous hairstyle didn't seem to have any real characteristics, almost as if he had asked his hairdresser to give him a cut which would kindly ask any potential observers very nicely to please, please ignore him.

Doubtlessly, no one would have spared him a glance if he hadn't been the only human being in this place – and so, the dark blue color of his eyes which was highly unusual for this particular patch of land would have gone unnoticed once again.

His posture alone was enough to tell that he really, really wanted to be just about anywhere else now; every little ever so little hair on the surface of his body showed his tension.

Of course, no one could blame a fourteen-year-old teenager for being nervous at the prospect of finding himself in some godforsaken place where a computer voice was unceasingly warning of some unidentified danger, but this was… more than just that.

In the hand that wasn't blocked by his bag's carrying strap, he held a piece of paper – no, a picture, which he had gripped on one of its corners with this Thumb and Index finger alone, afraid that he might damage it with the sweat on his fingers.

Once in a while, he would hold it properly to look up some of the writing on it as he wandered the train station.

It seemed like it was really deserted.

"She… she probably couldn't make it…" a high, boyish voice spoke, apparently addressing the air molecules in front of his nose.

Once again, he scanned the writing on the back of the photo. There was a complete description of the route he was supposed to take, complete with instructions about which trains to get on, which rails they would be arriving on and a phone number in case something should intervene with his arrival.

Originally, he hadn't been planning bother anyone with his probably stupid questions that would only be a nuisance anyway, especially not now where something really big appeared to have happened here, and he wasn't even really sure what he was doing here, but there it was, black on white: "Call in case of unforeseen occurrence."

There might as well be someone _waiting_ for his call right now.

Great. So he hadn't even met that woman who was supposed to pick him up, and he'd already made a bad impression.

He… he had to phone her.

The big question here however was how on earth he was supposed to do that.

As if the situation wasn't already bad enough, fate seemed to have mallicciously steppen on his fingers once again: He didn't have a mobile.

Sure, nowadays, just about _everyone_ seemed to have one, and his teacher had offered to buy him one often enough, but his answer had always been "No thanks."

He hadn't seen a reason to further inconvenience a person who had already gone through the trouble of looking after someone else's offspring, and even if he had, what would he use a phone for? It's not like there was ever anyone he could have called.

All he ever was was a nuisance… someone who was in the way, who always got _sent_ away.

He probably should have stayed home. Probably, that woman was now searching for him, and he had once again caused someone needless trouble.

Since the train station's main building was completely barred, he ran right past it, accelerated by the omnipresent warnings, and set out to search for some sort of public telephone.

In a city as large as this one, there _had_ to be at least some – Or had they been foregone in the process of reconstruction since everybody had cellphones nowadays?

He didn't have the faintest idea what to do. There wasn't anyone he could ask for directions.

He seemed to be somewhere in the periphery of the city, where all sort of plant life crept up between the buildings and spread over them like a cancerous growth.

There were power lines, but that was the best he could say.

There weren't even tramway rails in the streets.

Or, less poetically: He was in the middle of nowhere.

But luckily, he then found out that in the 21st century, even the middle of nowhere was full of phones: Just a few mere meters away from his current position, there was small, green phone innocently hanging beneath a plastic covering which probably served to protect it from rain.

Without wasting any time, he quickly approached the long awaited piece of technology and hesitantly picked up the earpiece. But just as he was going to type in the number, he was met with yet another off-putting revelation:

Right out of the earpiece, which he still kept dejectedly looking at after finding that out, came another of these security messages.

"It's not working…" he stated, sighing, before bending down to pick up the bag he had deposited earlier, after which he proceeded to enumerate the details of his unfortunate situation:

"I knew I shouldn't have come… All the phone lines are down because of the state of emergency… and there's no public transport, either…"

Resigned, he shot a glance at the photo that his contact person had provided him for the sake of recognition. (Which conspicuously showed her in scant summer wardrobe, grinning wide and making a V-sigh at the camera, further decorated by a little text saying "Check this out!" and an arrow pointing at her cleavage. )

"It looks as if out "date" is called off then…" He took a look at his watch which only confirmed his suspicions. "I should probably look for a shelter…"

He would probably have proceeded to turn around and walked away to fight his tears in a corner of the next shelter, alone and abandoned, if something else hadn't captured his attention in this very moment.

He was just turning away from the phone when he saw her.

A girl about his own age, wearing some kind of school uniform.

She stood on the middle of the street, somewhat in the distance, straight as a line, looking in his direction for no reason in particular.

A swarm of white birds, scared away by some danger which the boy had still to find out about, set into flight with a loud fluttering of their wings, leaving the power mast they had previously sat on entirely empty.

Motivated by a sort of curiosity he would have been ashamed out if he'd had the time to consciously think about it, he chose to divert his attention back to that girl who seemed to be interested in him for some reason.

Only… the street was completely deserted.

The fourteen year-old didn't hide his bewilderment. When did she leave?

Or had she just been a figment of his imagination?

But whatever might have been the correct answer, the boy didn't get very much time to wonder about it, for that which had shooed away the birds that had distracted him from that… apparition didn't keep him waiting for long.

One horrible shockwave waltzed through the small, empty street , causing several blinds, power cables and sadly, the boy's eardrum to vibrate strongly.

As most people, he reacted to the sudden tremor by twitching and covering the any affected body parts – in this case, his ears – with his hands.

Nonetheless, after having overcome his initial shock, he found that the tree-covered hills at the city's borders had a much crazier spectacle waiting for his eyes and yes, his ears at well, whose next ordeal consisted of the buzzing of an entire squadron of combat helicopters, which appeared flying backwards out of the landscape's relief, closely followed by an humongous, stomping _thing._

The sheer absurdity of it all was enough to leave the boy in a deeply disturbed state – And on top of that, the flying military now started bombarding the big, green monster …without success, of course.

A few rockets passed our unfortunate misadventurer far too close for his comfort – It was like in one of these second rate action movies: King-Kong, Godzilla, attack of the fifty-foot whatever, that sort of stuff.

He didn't recall taking any psychoactive drugs in the last twenty four hours, but it might as well have been different: The 'big green thing' for once wasn't a reptile, but it didn't seem much more believable: Its shape had a very distant similarity to a human's, the keyword being 'distant': It had discernible claws, but no real head, consisting mostly of a roughly humanoid _blob_ of some dark-green mass.

On its shoulders, it had rubber-like armor, furthermore, some three-layered, rubber-like elements could be found at its extremely angular hips, similar in texture to the thorn-like extensions sticking out of its elbows.

Even its exposed ribs had a stylized, artificial-ish appearance. Instead of protecting a heart or lungs, they covered something that looked like one of the red, ball-like Christmas tree ornaments except for being the size of a van, garnished by the collosal monster's 'face' which could be well mistaken for a mask if the creature didn't blink. Its only feature beyond its black, hole-like eyes was a vaguely avian beak.

The planes' extensive bombardement didn't seem to have caused it the tiniest scratch, nor did it seem to cost it any efforts to shoot one of them down by extending something conspicuously resembling a _lightsaber (?)_ from its hand (?), causing it to come crashing into the ground directly in front of where Shinji was standing, as if to prove that it, and by extension, the _thing_ that had torn it in two and blown it out of the sky, were a real, existing parts of his immediate surroundings.

He could have _touched_ it.

No, that was not quite the point… that plane, or any of the fragments it was falling apart into, had nearly crushed him! He's just barely missed being reduced to some ugly stain on the ground!

As much as the sight had already made him doubt his sanity, the line between "second rate action movie" and "bizzare piece of modern art" was only crossed when the beast actually _took flight_.

At first, the being was crowned by a ring of energy that a member of Judeo-Christian culture might have likened to a halo, next, the entire space around the thing, if strangely not the thing itself, was flooded with a golden radiance blowing everything away, and then… then it simply began floating, just like that.

And then, as if to eradicate the very last doubts in the boy's head, it had to pick the crashed plane in front of him out of all possible places where it could have landed.

Accompained by the noise level of ten rock concerts, the thing crushed the flying machine's remains with one flat, toeless foot, offering every bit of leftover kerosene inside of it one last chance to explode all at once.

Stricken by nothing less than unadulterated horror, he covered his face with his arms to shield it from the explosion's heat and shrapnel – he didn't need to, though.

At the last second, something that had brought loud braking noises with it blocked the path between his skin and both those none to pleasant things.

Nonetheless, the boy didn't dare to lower his arms and open his eyes before the wind, the light and the shockwave caused by the detonation had all subsided.

As it would seem, he owed his life to a small blue car and its driver, who quickly opened the door, apparently intending to take him with her.

Behind the vehicle's wheel sat an attractive, shapely built somewhat tanned woman in a black minidress that didn't hide much of her legs – not that she had any reason to hide them.

Even if the fact that she was casually smiling at him when they could be trampled to death by a big, green abomination at any moment was quite enough to evoke an association with the word "cool", she wore many little accessories that helped to strengthen that impression, some being her reddisch fingerless gloves, her round, golden earrings that resembled a work of modern art, the cross-shaped pendant she was wearing around her neck, the long, black hair that she wore with her bangs parted in the middle, or the sunglasses in the middle of her face – the face itself, on the other hand, gave him the distinct impression that he wasn't seeing it for the first time – She was his contact person!

"Sorry for being late!"

While the fourteen-year old quickly climbed into the car, forcefully closing the door behind him, the attack on the beast continued above the head, with the monster itself remaining relatively unimpressed. One might almost think that it had slightly turned its head and asked itself if it had been bitten by a mosquito.

In any case, it remained completely unaffected despite the near constant shelling, and continued on its path, not caring the slightest about the possibility that it might step on something, like, for example a little blue car with a fourteen-year old boy and a pretty, scantily clad woman inside of it.

That, however, was something which said beauty, who was a lot more competent that common stereotypes might lead one to believe, knew to counter by fumbling the shift lever much faster than her young companion's eyes could follow, hastily turning back to evade the abomination's foot, which had been showing the pavement little mercy so far by going into reverse and, last but not least, hurtling off into the distance by giving the gas pedal a heartfelt kick.

Behind them, the explosions never seemed to stop; the planes kept incessantly battling the skyscraper-sized entity, while the woman seemed driven to maximize the number of kilometers between herself and the aberration as fast as humanly possible.

Her 'guest' had used the meantime to put on his seatbelt – In the face of being on the run from a creature of giant fruit gum and the streets being mostly empty anyway, his companion could hardly be criticized for ignoring each and every speed limit and traffic rule, but if they _were_ going to drive into something, he'd like to be prepared.

Making the tires squeal in protest, the sunglass-woman didn't stop her vehicle until they were both already out in the green, where she proceeded to shove the boy entrusted to her aside in a manner that was pretty embarrassing for him to observe the green beast from a safe distance using binoculars.

Ostensively alarmed when she saw the planes pulling back, she shifted her position, inadvertently gifting the boy with the bittersweet privilege to get to know her breasts a little better.

However, she didn't leave him the time to blush: "They've got to be kidding… They're gonna use an N²! GET DOWN!"

Even if he didn't have the slightest clue what an 'N²' was supposed to be, the resident expert's worry proved to be enough to leave him frozen with shock, forcing her to grab him and ruggedly pull him down to their seats along with herself.

Nevertheless, the N² didn't need much time to speak for itself and teach him what exactly it was: The glistening light that fell through the windows was so intense that he could see its brightness through his eyelids, and it was promptly followed by a shockwave: At first, the car was only shaking, as if it had been exposed to strong winds, then, it was blown away from its place, and the boy found himself extremely grateful for his seatbelt: The car overturned, several hard, unpleasant impacts shook the inside of the vehicle whose driver had protectively clasped the boy as they were both thrown about the landscape.

* * *

"Are you allright…?" the woman asked her young companion after they had managed to climb out of their lopsided car after freeing themselves from the… entanglement that had resulted from their bumpy landing.

She had been… warm and soft, and he preferred _not_ to think about it any further right now.

"Yeah, it's… just that my mouth is full of sand…" the fourteen-year old answered truthfully.

Since most of their immediate surroundings had been reduced to a field of ash resembling the surface of the moon, that was a fairly encouraging damage report, even if their car now made for a rather… dented sight.

"So, let's get started! When I count three!"

The odd couple then immediately proceeded to return the car to a vertical position through their concerted effort.

After some tiring exercise, they ultimately succeeded in moving the battered jalopy, even if the somewhat jumpy 'gentleman' had his problems with the noise the vehicle created when it landed back on the ground.

"Thanks a lot!" The lady with the sunglasses finally said, contently placing her hands on her hips after finishing her work. "I don't think I would have managed without you."

Despite having been hit by the explosion of a bomb that certainly wasn't to be underestimated, her smile hadn't faded.

Motivated by her words, the circumstance that she had just saved his life several times in a row and her general kindness, he let himself get carried away to a small, tentative smile.

Her name. If he only knew her name. Hadn't it been on one of the papers he sent her?

"N-No, it's me who has to thank you, Katsuragi-san.

She just smiled and took off her glasses, revealing trustworthy-looking, friendly brown eyes.

"Just call me Misato." She requested. "It's nice to meet you, Ikari Shinji-kun."

"Y-Yeah…"

* * *

After Misato had used both spare parts which she had "confiscated by the government's orders" (or, as Shinji called it, "stolen") and astronomic lengths of duct tape to patch the car back together, their journey quickly resumed.

Tough Misato had tried to instigate some Small Talk along the way, she had, much to her annoyance, been forced to conclude that Shinji didn't exactly belong to the talkative half of the population.

The closer they came to their destination, the more the boy's thoughts appeared to circle around something completely unrelated to his revealingly clothed companion.

He gave off an increasingly nervous, uneasy air; at very least since they had driven into a tunnel secured by a special bar after which the entrance door to some sort of car-conveyor closed behind them, it had become painfully obvious that something was deeply troubling him, as much as he tried to conceal it.

The door that had closed behind them, thus leaving them with a dim, red lamp as their only source of light did manage to detract him from his brooding, if only because it created a connection between this place and the reason for his tenseness.

It wasn't really the door itself, even if it had substantially more in common with the setting of a James-Bond-Movie than with the entrance to a parking deck or any other equally mundane alternatives, but the symbol that had been lacquered on it in a bloody-red color.

It was half a leaf, perhaps maple, accompanied by some English slogan, quote or saying, but what really drawn his recognitions where the four large letters directly bordering on the leaf's image.

"Nerv…?" he read out loud with an inquiring tone. "Is that some sort of secret service?"

Everything in here really did look like something out of all these secret-agent-movies, the technology, the hidden elevators in innocent-looking tunnels, the ridiculously competent, barely clothed women… Naturally, all of that sounded totally ridiculous, but it still made significantly more sense than the ginormous monster that had just barely missed stepping on him.

Then again, its secrecy status wasn't the part of this place that _really_ held his interest…

Misato had leant back a bit since she didn't really have to drive at the moment.

"Let's say secret _organization_. We're part of the UN."

"Is that also the organization… my father is part of?"

"Yeah." The woman answered with a casual legerity that failed to do justice to the deep implications that her statement had for Shinji. All of this was just too _crazy_.

Again and Again, he wondered why he had even bothered to come here.

It would have been easier to name the things in this place that _didn't_ stir his fears.

"So, how much do you know about your father's work?" Misato asked with a friendliness and positivity that Shinji found to be grossly unfitting.

By now, the light had turned itself back on and the buzzing all around them signaled that the machines which were supposed to transport them were slowly coming to life.

Shinji evaded her eyes. "My teacher used to tell me… that my father's job is to save humanity…

Where ever we are going… am I going to… meet my father there?"

That mere thought was enough to make Shinji's face lose the visual equivalent of an octave in color over the course of an instant.

With an expression of absolute helplessness, he stared ahead distraughtly.

"Yeah, sure." Misato confirmed parenthetically as she checked the state of her make up in a small folding mirror.

Shinji grew even paler.

Like air bubbles in midnight-black coca cola, unpleasant memories kept inexorably pressing towards the surface.

"Father…"

Never would he forget that moment, that one scene that had burnt itself into the sulci and gyri of his brain as one of his first memories.

It had been exactly the kind of bag he was carrying now, not the small, green satchel he had put the light luggage in, but like the large handle back, except that it had been blue, carelessly dumped in front of his feet, as he, still a small, tiny pile of misery in a striped shirt that was far too large, just stood there, bawling his eyes out, waiting for his train, for that one ride in that sunlight-filled wagon, that had meant the end of the world to him.

When that huge, dark silhouette had turned away from him, the steps trailing off in the distance, he had gotten a pretty good idea of what it must feel like to be banished to hell, even though he could not recall what his "life" had been like before that.

"Oh yeah…" Misato began in an inquiring tone that once again pulled the teenager from his deliberations. "Did your father send you an ID?"

"Uh, yeah." Immediately, he began searching his bag for the paper in question, which had come along with the letter with the two words on it and Misato's card. Upon finding it, he handed it to her.

"Thanks." Misato replied, giving the document a scrutinizing look.

"Then go on and read this thoroughly."

But the boy's joy at getting handed a little booklet titled "Nerv – for your eyes only" was pretty understated, not to say nonexistent.

Strictly speaking, what was building up in his face was closer to thinly veiled, partially suppressed anger. "Nerv? Does that mean… that I'm going to have something to do with my father's _work_?"

As soon as he had finished speaking those words, Shinji had already begun to reprimant himself internally. Oh no, he thought to himself, he had once again allowed himself unrealistic expectations and foolish, childish hopes. He had known that he shouldn't have come.

"I… can't say I'm surprised… He would never write to me if he didn't need me for something…"

"Oh, I see…" Misato answered, examining her car's dented ceiling. "You don't really get along with your father, do you? I guess that's something we both have in common."

Shinji properly looked at the dissonantly good-humored woman for the first time since their conversation had begun, this time with great bewilderment, if not outright shock.

How could she say such a thing just like that, as if it didn't bother her at all?

When the dark walls were replaced bytransparent plating, Shinji was confronted with a completely different input which he had to process first: Beyond the glass, he was awaited by the shining facades of skyscrapers which seemed to be growing out of the ceiling like stalactites, shrouded in surreal, orange light.

"U-Unbelievable!"

Even someone as quiet and reserved as Shinji couldn't help but marvel at this sight: He had just found himself in a gigantic, subterranean cavity which just seemed to go on and on in every direction.

It was enormous; He hadn't seen a cavity this large in all of his life.

Of course it was different from having the sky spread out above him, which only served to make it even _more_ breathtaking.

The yellowish-orange, artificial sunlight coming from those giant lamps on the ceiling with its color resembling, but by no means equaling daylight made it seem like a whole, different world.

What struck Shinji as even more abstruse was that such an expanse could have entire lakes, trees and even buildings inside of it.

A cave was, in itself, something close to indoors, so putting futher buildings inside of it was simply too surreal.

The building in the approximate middle of this place, some sort of pyramid with an illuminated, inverse-pyramid shaped lake right next to it, didn't make it any better.

At tremendous speed, they were venturing deeper and deeper into this unreal-seeming establishment, always following a spiral-shaped path.

"A… real Geofront!" Shinji beamed, showing that he was, in spite of everything else, a male teenager that would react to "cool" stuff.

"Yes. " Misato confirmed. "This is our secret base, Nerv-Headquarters. The Fundament for our new Beginning."

* * *

The strange pyramid was, as he soon found out, merely the tip of the iceberg; Nerv's actual headquarters was an enormous labyrinth-like complex reaching far into the depths of the earth.

With emphasis on _labyrinth_.

The bizarre architecture itself was confusing, if impressive enough on its own.

Right now, Misato were riding one of these conveyor-belt-like moving paths often found in airports, on one of the many thin balks bridging a deep chasm separating two parts of the complex.

"Strange… I thought this was the right way at last…" Misato mused as the air flow set her hair in motion and sabotaged her efforts to make sense of her map.

"I really should start wearing trousers… Where on earth is Ritsuko when you need her? Sorry, it's just that I'm new here myself…"

"That certainly explains why I feel that we've been here before…" Shinji commented while trying to read the booklet with the information.

Misato reacted with a sigh, but didn't need all too long to regain her good mood: "But don't worry! After all, all systems were built to be used…"

* * *

Shortly afterwards, Misato had grabbed the next communications facility, issued a "maximum priority" announcement and placed herself in front of the next best elevator with a somewhat uncertain-looking Shinji in tow, probably because it was right next to the panel which had revealed the cryptic designation of this part of the complex, which seemed to consist of completely arbitrary numbers and letter.

Marginally later, Misato's grinning face on the reflective elevator doors was replaced by the aggravated visage of a woman whose fake blonde hair went just below her chin.

Aside from her stern look whose effect she couldn't possibly have topped with anything short of writing the words "not amused" across her forehead, the lady could be characterized by her purple, rhombus-shaped earrings, her green eyes and the mole she had beneath the left one.

If her glare was intended to make Misato uncomfortable, then its mission had been carried out successfully.

"H-hi, Ritsuko!" she greeted, somewhat intimidated.

The blonde wasted no time on trivialities, and immediately proceeded to step out of the elevator, which actually made the normally dauntless Misato back off as soon as the felt her colleague's haunting eyes on herself.

At this point, it should be mentioned that all she was wearing beneath her lab coat was a light blue swimsuit – apparently, the 'urgent announcement' had reached her ears in a particularly impractical moment, which was probably accountable for the "joyful reunion" which Shinji just witnessed.

The scientist immediately addressed the issue: "Captain Katsuragi. We don't have the time or the personnel for this."

After she had finished complaining, she diverted her glance at Shinji who had begun to feel somewhat forgotten, even if he did have the manual to keep himself busy.

"So he's the one?" She asked, now that her initial Anger had subsided.

"Yep." Misato replied. "…According to the Marduk-Institute's latest report, he's the Third Child."

"Hello. I'm the leading scientist on Project E, Dr. Akagi Ritsuko. It's nice to meet you."

Third What? Shinji didn't have the faintest idea what they were talking about. He was what?

Insecurely, he closed his booklet and cautiously eyes the fake blonde.

It was only then that he realized that she had just introduced herself, and that, until now, he had only 'returned' the courtesy by staring at her without displaying the slightest sign of manners.

"Y-Yeah, I'm… pleased, too…" he answered in a low voice.

Misato just sighed. "Looks like he takes after his father… He's got exactly the same gloomy eyes."

* * *

A little later, Shinji had followed the two women onto an elevator-like platform, where he was still reading the instructions as it traveled along the transparent wall of what appeared to be some sort of large tank.

All that could be seen inside was dim, red light which barely illuminated more than their silhouettes.

In the distance, further announcements could be heard instructing the personnel to assume 'battle stations'. But for what sort of battle? Against that Monster, perhaps?

If so, how did they have the time to go pick some kid up and, on top of that, have their… – what did she call herself? Leading scientist? – introduce herself to him. Whatever she was, it was hard to believe that she would have any time for the likes of him.

As the two conversed abut some technological things that not even the information in the booklet could help him understand, he began to ask himself more and more what he was even doing in this bizarre place.

"Do you heart that?"

"Yeah, seems like the situation is about to get serious."

"Now that we're at it, what's the status of unit one?"

"It has already been fitted with B-Equipment and is now being cooled."

"…Are you really going to activate it? As far as I know, there has never been a successful test before…"

"The odds for a successful activation are at 0, 000000001%. We also call it the nine-zero system."

"So you're saying it's not going to work?"

"My, my, I didn't say it was zero."

"Yeah, but that's just a theoretical chance… But apparently, "Sorry, that's impossible." is considered a lazy excuse here."

* * *

Soon after, they had reached the top of the large chamber which turned out to be, as Shinji had correctly guessed, a tank filled with liquid.

There was some large, green-violet thing with a striking resemblance to an Arm attached to the wall, but after all the crazy things he had seen today, he merely considered it a slightly odd choice for decoration.

Departing from the basin's edge, the journey continued via rubber boat, and later by climbing two stories' worth of stairs which then led into a metal-plated passageway up to the center of one large, dark hall.

At first, the light streaming from the open door allowed him to see at least a small streak of the metal floor, but as the entrance closed automatically, they were left in complete Darkness.

"Ikari Shinji-kun… We have something we want to show you."

"But… its pitch black…" Shinji commented, stating the obvious.

Acknowledging her newest coworker's complaint, Dr. Akagi produced some sort of device from her pocket – or at least, that's what he _thought_ she did, since he couldn't exactly see it – and used it to turn on the light.

The next thing Shinji found right in front of his eyes made him wince in shock.

He stood directly in front of some humongous, metallic violet _something._

And gaped.

He felt everything around him starting to spin.

"A-a face…

A giant robot!"

Completely overwhelmed, a state that could be forgiven given that he had just been confronted with gigantic monsters, secret organizations, subterranean hideouts and now, _Mechas_ over the course of a few dozens of Minutes, he began wildly searching the booklet that he still hadn't managed to finish reading despite his efforts, but Dr. Akagi gestured to make him stop.

"You won't find anything about this in the manual."

"Heh…?" even more confused, Shinji turned towards the scientist, who swiftly continued with her explanation: "What you see before you now is a multi-purpose weapon in humanoid shape, a so called "Evangelion." This is EVA 01. It was built in strict secrecy, and may now be humanity's last chance."

"So this… is my father's work…?"

_"Exactly."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) Uff… translating this is much more work than I thought it would be… Tough that iosn't the only reason it took so long. I've been rather busy, real-life wise.
> 
> (2) As you have seen, this follow episode one or the corresponding part in 1.X pretty closely. This is going to keep being the case for the next chapters, but the full scope of my evil plan shall become apparent soon enough.
> 
> (3) Look forward to the next Chapter, 04: [GARUDA], where the fated reunion between father and son will take place…


	5. 04: [GARUDA]

_Siehst du mich_

_Hörst du mich_

_Was hab ich dir getan_

_Warum zerstörst du mich_

_Fühlst du mich_

_Spürst du mich_

_Wenn du mich nicht mehr liebst_

_warum berührst du mich_

_Brauchst du mich_

_Sag glaubst du nicht_

_Dass es besser ist_

_du lebst dein leben ohne mich_

_Erkennst du mich_

_Verstehst du nicht_

_Warum bist du überhaupt noch hier_

_Was willst du noch von mir_

_[..]_

_Du weißt nicht was du willst_

_Du weißt nicht wo du stehst_

_weißt nicht woher du kommst_

_wohin du gehst_

_Du weißt nicht was dich treibt_

_was am Ende für dich bleibt_

_Warum bist du_

_so blass_

_so kalt_

_so herzlos_

_Du weißt nicht was du tust_

_weißt nicht woran du glaubst_

_Sag mir wozu und ob_

_du mich noch brauchst_

_Wenn's einfach nicht mehr passt_

_Wenn du mich wirklich nur noch hasst_

_Warum bist du noch hier_

_Wofür_

_Was willst du noch von mir_

_Siehst du mich_

_Erkennst du mich_

_Ganz tief in meinem Herz_

_ist noch ein Platz für dich_

_Ich suche dich_

_Ich sehne mich_

_nach dem was ich geliebt hab_

_doch ich find es nicht_

_Augen auf_

_Wer sieht versteht_

_wie gnadenlos die Zeit vergeht_

_wie sich der Zeiger dreht_

_unentwegt_

_Er steht nie still_

_Viel zu lange_

_Viel zu spät_

_Sturm geerntet_

_Wind gesät_

_die Zeit vergeht_

_unentwegt_

_Sie steht nie still_

_-Megaherz,'5.März'._

* * *

[:]

_Do you see me?_

_Do you hear me?_

_What have I done to you,_

_Why are you destroying me?_

_Do you feel me?_

_Do you feel me?_

_If you don't love me anymore,_

_Why are you touching me?_

_Do you need me?_

_Don't you think_

_That it's better if you live your life without me?_

_Do you recognize me?_

_Don't you understand?_

_Why are you even still here?_

_What do you want from me?_

_[…]_

_You don't know what you want,_

_You don't know where you're standing,_

_You don't know where you come from and where you're going,_

_You don't know what drives you, what will be left for you in the end_

_Why are you_

_So pale,_

_So cold,_

_So heartless?_

_You don't know what you're doing_

_You don't know what you believe in_

_Tell me if you still need me and what for_

_If it just doesn't fit anymore,_

_If you really don't have anything but hate left for me,_

_Why are you still here?_

_What for?_

_What do you want from me?_

_Do you see me?_

_Do you recognize me?_

_Deep down in my heart, there's still a place for you_

_I'm searching for you_

_I long for_

_What I once loved, but I can't find it_

_Open your eyes,_

_Who can see can understand,_

_How merciless time goes by,_

_How the pointer rotates ceaselessly,_

_It never stands still_

_Far too long_

_Far too late_

_Reaped storm,_

_Sown wind,_

_Time goes by ceaselessly,_

_It never stands still_

_-Megaherz,'Fifth of March'_

* * *

_"Exactly."_

When he recognized the voice, Shinji's heart failed to beat for a few instants.

The mere sound of that deep, coarse voice was enough to send him into incontrollable shivers, made his knees grow weak and firmly convinced him that he was never to feel happiness ever again, if only for the brief moments in which he heard its sound.

Unable to produce as much as the ghost of a coherent thought, Shinji followed the long, sleek horn of the war machine before his eyes as if he were in a state of trance, up to the small pulpit on the ceiling.

And up there, high above him, as an eagle targeting the filthy, slithering serpents below, planning to devour them upon his descent, there he stood, glaring down at him, cold, pale and heartless, as much as Shinji tried to convince himself of something else.

The man in the pulpit was in a state of decay;

It wasn't his age that deserved the blame; In spite of being anything but far from the big fifty, time had been merciful on him: His face hardly showed any significant wrinkles, and his hair was still where it belonged, still possessing its original, dark brown color.

And yet, it was that very hair which betrayed him; The only reason he still cut it short was probably to pass its chaotic state for a modern hairstyle. In turn, his facial hair had been allowed to pullulate as it pleased, framing his face with a wild beard.

The face itself could be described as 'edgy' at best and as 'gaunt' at worst, and his eyes, dark blue as the sky during in the last breaths of a dying day, after the red of the evening sun and even the last glimmer of violet had disappeared past the horizon, minutes away from disappearing into blackness, where hidden behind inornate, cheap-looking sunglasses.

His uniform jacket, black as spilled ink save for some green ornaments, was carelessly slipped over him and not even zipped; beneath, he wore a bloody-red turtleneck regardless of the constantly estival temperatures that had become the norm after second impact.

His hands, covered in white gloves, were kept hidden within his pockets.

Every single detail of his powerful appearance compelled Shinji to feel the untamable wish to turn around, run away and shrink into a corner to cry, wither and die there, but his feet refused to carry him.

"It's been a long time." was the commander's dry greeting.

"F-Father…"

Unable to stand the icy glance any longer, Shinji averted his eyes.

The older Ikari's only comment was a low 'hmph', after which he addressed his son with both a thin smile or smirk and an order: "Move out."

"M-Move out?" Misato retorted in disbelief. "But Unit Zero is still in cryostasis!"

But as she thought about where exactly she was, and with whom, the issue quickly became much clearer to her: "You… You're not planning on using Unit 01, are you?"

"We don't have a choice." Akagi explained.

"B-but Rei isn't in any shape to do it! We don't have any pilots!"

The scientist was quick to contradict her: "One just arrived." She turned towards the still intimidated-looking boy. "Ikari Shiji?"

"Yes?"

"You will be the pilot."

"But… even Ayanami Rei needed seven months to synchronize herself with her EVA! He just arrived! How is that supposed to work?"

The boy still standing in between the women did indeed not appear to be coping with the news all too well.

"We just want him to try sitting in it. We're not expecting any more than that."

"But…!"

"At the moment, our main concern is to stop the angel. If there is a chance that he will be able to move the EVA on his first attempt, however slight it might be, then we at least have to try it!" Akadi demanded. "We have run out of other options. Do you understand that, captain Katsuragi?"

"You… You're probably right…" Misato conceded hesitantly, although she still didn't see very convinced. She didn't like this situation in the slightest, especially when she looked at that despondent boy over there.

It all reminded her far too much of things that she's prefer to forget, and she felt much more compelled to side with Shinji than what would have been reconcilable with her duty.

Shinji himself had spent all these long Minutes which Misato and Dr. Akagi had been arguing about that crazy situation which he found himself believing less and less of scratching together the valor to speak for himself.

All of this talk about angels and synchronization was besides the point. That wasn't what he had wanted to hear.

"Father… Why did you call me here…?"

"You have already been told." the dark silhouette before him answered, without the slightest shred of feeling.

Every single thing about this was just too ludicrous.

What did they thought he was, a magical girl?

Grotesque, that's what it was! Shinji no longer even tried to conceal his discontentment: "Then you seriously want me to climb into that thing and fight that monster I saw on the way here?"

"Yes." The commander answered, as if it was the most normal thing in the world to climb into absurd robots to fight creatures made of green fruit gum.

He… he couldn't be serious about this.

Shinji had finally reached his breaking point: He could no longer stop the warm, salty fluid from pooling beneath his eyes. "I won't! Why are you saying all this this of all sudden? I thought you didn't want me!"

"I called you because I needed you." Ikari answered, still not showing much of a reaction to his son's emotional state.

"And why did it have to be me?" Shinji asked despondently, hanging his head on all of the multiple screens the older Ikari was standing next to.

"Because no one else will do."

"But I won't, either!" Shinji countered, his voice quaking. As helpless as he felt, they might as well have pulled the ground out of underneath his feet. Why was his father so thoroughly convinced that he had any chance at doing anything remotely expedient with that huge robot thing?

"I have never seen or even heard of that thing in my life! What makes you think I can do this?"

"I'll explain it to you if you want me to."

But Shinji wasn't even really listening anymore. "No… that's enough! I can't! I just can't do it, okay?"

Unfortunately, the Commander seemed to be nearing the end of his tether as well: "Either you try it now, or you _leave_. "

The callousness that last word was spoken with earned Shinji the pitying looks of Misato and probably roughly half of the present technicians, but the being which Dr. Akagi has referred to as "the Angel" was notably less tactful: An impetuous succussion interrupted the admittedly rather fruitless father-son-talk.

"It found us." The former noted, understandably less than pleased.

But that had only been a warning shot: The next, significantly more powerful shockwave followed immediately.

The first damage reports began to arrive over the speakers.

"Shinji-kun, we're out of time." Ritsuko spoke, in one last effort to convince the (if understandably) uncooperative potential Pilot.

Beseeching, he turned to Misato, but she, too, urged him to climb into the metal monstrosity before his eyes.

Shinji hung his head. He felt like the entire World had turned against him now.

He couldn't take it… oh, why wouldn't it stop!

"This is ridiculous…" he kept protesting, his voice much weaker and more resigned than before.

"I... I didn't come for something like this…"

"Shinji-kun…" Misato bent down to look into his eyes, fixating them with her own still warm, but serious brown ones. "Then tell me, _what else_ did you come here for?"

He evaded her gaze.

The answer to this question was something he himself did not want to hear; He had already sufficiently understood how foolish and naïve he had been.

Regardless, Misato followed his eyes' elopement and kept talking at his face in further attempts to get through to him: "You mustn't run away, Shinji-kun. Neither from your father, nor from yourself…"

By now, it almost took an acrobatic feat to avoid her eyes. So it was all that psychobabble once again, the classic good advice… Did she really think that he hadn't already heard all this from his teacher?

How on earth was that related to the fact that he had never seen one of these robot things before?

None of it had ever been any help. What good was it to say that a glass was one millionth full if there were only a few lonely water molecules left in it?

"I know, I know! But that doesn't change that I still can't do this!"

After he his voice had fallen silent, EVA 01's cage was left with nothing but frosty quiet to fill itself.

Misato put herself back into an upright position.

For a few instants, the Commander's gaze abided on his son, but then he was forced to concede that there was no further sense in it.

He had never meant for Shinji to get involved with all of this anyway, or for him to be kept anywhere but far away from him.

But now that Rei had gotten injured in that accident, he was the only one who could pilot unit one… the only one who could fill the role of the "Third Child" mentioned in the prophecies, the only one of whom the older Ikari could be certain that EVA 01 was sure to accept him.

Oh, and just _how_ sure he was of that!

He couldn't do significantly more than trying to explain the situation – attempting to embellish what was awaiting his son would be futile anyway.

He did not seem to be able to as much as talk to Shinji without making him cry.

This wasn't like politics or a scientific experiment, where specific processes could be set in motion by certain actions.

He'd never understood this kind of things – If only Yui had been here, she would have been able to explain all of this much better. She had always found just the right thing to say, Yui with her gentle, ethereal voice and her warm, well-meaning words…

Somehow, Ikari had always known that it would come to this.

His plan was already firmly set in stone and left little space for further alterations; the moment that Shinji would have set foot in that entry plug, there would have been no turning back.

Still, the alternative he was now forced to resort to didn't please the last vestiges of these low, aleways reprehensive voices in the back of his head, whom he had never really listened to much more.

The reflective surface of the commander's glasses hid the expression in his eyes as he turned them towards the screen-covered wall next to him.

"Fuyutsuki."

The image of tall man in his late fifties appeared on one of the screens. In contrast to his superior, he kept his already greyed hair neatly combed back, wore his uniform in due form, and displayed an appropriate level of concern on his wrinkled face.

"What is it?"

"…We have to wake Rei."

"But… what about her state?"

"She isn't dead, is she?"

As much as Ikari appreciated the older man's skills, at times, he tended to be much to sentimental. Couldn't he see that he had already tried each and every possible alternative?

"As you will."

He didn't seem pleased about it, but the subcommander's face was soon replaced either way, its place being taken by a white screen with the words "Sound only" written in its center.

"Rei?"

"Yes, Sir?" a high, fragile voice answered.

"Your replacement is useless." He reported. "You know what that means."

"Yes, Sir."

For once, there was complete silence.

But not for long.

"Understood." Dr. Agaki confirmed to her superior, before beginning to give various orders over the Intercom, amongst them that EVA 01 be reconfigured to R-0-parameters and lisatened how some subordinate of hers who was probably sitting in some sort of command center right now relayed the state of various complicated technologic processes to her.

Even Misato was walking away, leaving Shinji just standing her after just one short glance back at him, just like his father had just left him, like so many others.

No one really seemed to take notice of the fact that he was still in the room.

The bustle just went on without him, everything had to get finished as quickly as possible, after all, they had some big green monster to defeat.

Shaken by his fear, his helplessness but also, most surprising to even himself, a good portion of anger, he hung his head even lower. He would have broken down in Tears if he hadn't been frightened of the sharp voice of the person who was bound to complain about the noise that would cause.

 _"I knew that it was going to perfectly work without me…"_ he silently thought to himself. _"I'm useless, after all… All I can do is bothering everyone around me…"_

Just as he was going to turn around and go look for some dark, lonesome corner where he wouldn't be in anyone's way, the entrance door was opened before he had any opportunity do so himself.

As it opened, the door revealed a doctor and two nurses, who were wheeling a metal hospital bed into the room, complete with pure-white bedding and an intravenous drip.

Being a nice guy at the bottom of his heart, Shinji was unable to maintain any other expression that one of commiseration and sympathy as the medical personnel pushed their patient past the spot he was standing on.

The very first impulse the sight of her stirred within him was the imperative drive to do something – _anything_ – to help her somehow.

The poor thing, who seemed to be about Shinji's age, was tightly packaged in bandages from head to toe – There were some around her head, combined with a piece of gauze held in place by various plasters which covered one of her eyes. Heaven knew if there even still _was_ anything remotely resembling an eye beneath it. And it didn't stop just there: The drip was lodged in her elbow crease, and just a little further down, more bandages began. The other elbow crease was buried deep beneath a thick plaster cast, as was, in fact, the majority of the arm in question, and even on her torso, more bandages could be spotted, although they were partially hidden beneath her clothing.

And why did she have to be so alarmingly pale on top of that? Why didn't she use her remaining eye for something other than staring into the air apathetically?

She looked so impossibly weak and fragile, as if the slightest touch or even a loud noise would be enough to make her burst into a thousand pieces.

The strange, skin-tight costume they had stuffed her into, as far as he could tell, some sort of full-body rubber suit with a few plastic elements on it, didn't make it any better: Not only did it leave little of her small, but firm and round breasts to the imagination, it was also white as bone, which, firstly, was quite demonstrative at illustrating just how minute the difference beneath the color of her skin and that of a sheet of paper was, and secondly, happened to be a fairly cold and sterile color which only served to fuel the protective instinct that Shinji never knew he had.

He had the strange feeling that he had seen her somewhere before, tough he couldn't say where nor when. It might have been a déjà vu, after all, he surely wouldn't forget it if he'd ever seen a girl with bluish-white hair and crimson eyes.

He wondered if she could be an albino, but weren't those supposed to have _blue_ eyes whose faint coloration occasionally allowed the blood vessels on the retina to shine through? The girl's eye color was far too intense for that, not fitting the rest of her otherwise faint, pale appearance.

Red and blue were, after all, the colors that lay the furthest apart in the visible spectrum, and the blue tint that was missing from her eyes had inexplicably found its way into her hair. Yes, he'd heard of people with blue- _black_ hair, but this was something else entirely…

The nurses detached the intravenous drip from its holder, presumably to give the girl some more freedom of movement.

Exuding heart wrenching sounds of anguish – her voice sounded soft, high and fragile as glass – the girl sat up, whimpering, her breathing labored as she forced tremendous exertion and even greater suffering onto her mangled body.

She tried to raise her arm to grab her beds metal frame next to the end where her head had just been to support herself while standing up, but she had to stop to gasp for air. Every ever so tiny movement appeared to be torture for her, and yet, she didn't even seem to be as much as considering lying down, no matter how self-evident her dire need for just that should have been for anyone with healthy eyes and ears.

Shinji's discomfort was obvious.

What was it his father just said? "Your replacement is useless?"

Did that mean that he'd been called here to… take that girl's place?

Impossible.

Where they… actually going to force that poor, fragile being… into that Robot….?

Then, another shockwave came.

Another of the Angel's shots, this time, substantially more successful.

The entire complex trembled; even the lamps on the ceiling shook dangerously.

Shinji was thrown to the ground and even that poor, severely injured girl slid off her bed before she had any time to react, expelling one breathless, pained scream from her colorless lips.

When the building came to a rest, her bed lay on the ground with all the associated medical utensils scattered around it.

The girl herself had also fallen to the ground – and she wasn't standing up.

She was just lying there, trembling, not even able to correct her strangely bent position which was hardly a surprise, considering that she was struggling for each and every shallow, labored breath, barely capable of drawing the smallest tidbits of air into her limp form and probably even limited in her capacity to process the little oxygen she could manage to inhale.

The sounds of her agony had grown considerably fainter.

What if her wounds had reopened or even been joined by new ones?

Wasn't anyone going to tend to her?

The older Ikari's face was twisted into a strange mixture of a cringe of worry and a "Just as planned."-grin as he watched his son rush to the injured girl's side without a moment's hesitation.

"Hey you, are you all right?"

Without even thinking about it, he gently took her into his Arms, as if he were handling a box of raw eggs. However, not even all of his diligence was enough to stop her from producing a sharp, pained sound as soon as he had gripped her, only to continue gasping for air immediately.

Cradling the poor girl who was trembling all over her body in his arms, he looked at the large, purple robot thing, followed by another glance at the girl.

They weren't seriously going to put her in there, were they?

Before he could think any further, Shinji felt something warm on his hand.

He brought it before his eyes, exclusively supporting the girl in white with the other.

It was blood.

Actual, bright-red blood.

It was the smell of human blood that was beginning to fill his Nose.

Aghast, he stared at his hand, and then, past it, straight at the girl.

She had been dragged out of her safe, clean hospital bed for the sole reason that _he_ had refused to get into this stupid robot… and now, she was probably still going to be cooped into it, bleeding and wheezing and all that, where even more wounds and therefore, certain death were waiting for her.

No. There was no way that he could allow this to happen and then keep calling himself a man afterwards. If this miserable, harried girl could muster the courage to challenge that abomination, then so could he.

If he only had that kind of willpower…

Unable to accept any more of his own cowardice, squeezed his eyes shut.

_I mustn't run away, I mustn't run away, I mustn't run away, I mustn't run away, Imustntrunaway…_

"I'll do it!" he proclaimed, holding his head upright for the first time since the beginning of this conversation. "I'll pilot that thing!"

* * *

In the shape of numerous miniature waterfalls, the coolant was flushed out of the "Cage", as the technicians called the basin the giant robot was being kept in.

Shinji wasn't quite sure if he remembered the meaning of that English word correctly –

It made little sense, didn't it? Wouldn't you call a depository for a Robot "garage" or "armory"?

Normally, only _living_ things like dogs or birds got put into cages, to prevent them from escaping.

How on earth was a robot supposed to run away?

Now, that the liquid was gradually receding, he got a proper idea of just _how_ enormous the steely colossus that was now a few meters beneath him, held in place by various contraptions and lock bolts, really was.

One part of the many constructions arranged around the Evangelion was the small platform Shinji was currently standing on – and its flooring and handrail made of simple steel grate failed to provide him with any feeling of safety.

Shinji gulped; He should probably avoid looking down, especially now where the liquid's surface was sinking further and further.

Directly in front of him, held in midair by further retaining brackets, was a long, torpedo-shaped object the size of a large bus which was marked by black letters spelling 'EVA-01' – judging by what he had been told, this was a so-called "Entry Plug", which more or less translated to "cockpit".

As far as he knew, he was supposed to climb in there, after which it would be automatically inserted into the robot, or "Evangelion" as its makers preferred to call it. Needless to say, Shinji didn't particularly enjoy the prospect of being propelled through absurd altitudes by some crane.

Still, it was already far too late to turn back now; the platform he was standing on had already been moved to where he was supposed to leave it, far away from the stairway he had used to enter it.

Of course, he could still have asked them to drive it back and let him go, but… no. Just no.

They wouldn't do that, not when they were in this kind of hurry. They would him into doing this one way or the other.

Or at least that was what he was trying to believe. They were forcing him, yes, he was being forced.

It had to be that way. He had to convince himself of that so that he couldn't possibly think of coping out now.

He had already traded his bags for a so called "Interface-Headset" that was technically too short to be an actual headset – it reminded him more of an hair circlet for girls, except that the thin, black Material probably wouldn't stand out much amongst his hair, unlike the triangular, white devices at its ends which would probably stick out of it like tiny horns.

Dr. Akagi had called them "nerve clips", which sounded a bit too painful for Shinji's comfort.

Reportedly, these should help him 'connect' with the robot. Connect? What did they think he was, an USB-Stick, perhaps?

At least the instructions for use were relatively simple: He was to put it on like a hairband, press the little buttons on the side, press it onto his head and let go.

That was allegedly all it took to put it on, and since some of the mostly indecipherable technobabble which could be heard all around them suggested that they were just about to insert this 'Entry Plug', he figured that it was probably about time for him to do just that.

As a matter of fact, they were indeed easy to put on, stayed in place and really didn't hurt or anything like that, but it still felt somewhat …strange to wear them, as much on his cranium as in his hands when he touched them carefully. They just didn't… belong there.

At least their horn-like design fit very well with the design of the Robot beneath him, even if it was merely equipped with _one_ decorative horn instead of two.

In this very Moment, the hatch to his new workplace opened, revealing… not much at all.

Just an instant before, he had been wondering how he could possibly manage all the buttons and levers that one would expect at the helm of such a complex robot (Shinji's reflexes had never been all too fast) but now, he was wondering what exactly he was supposed to do in there.

It was nothing but a large tube that was plated with yellowish metal on the inside.

Within, there was little more than a seat fixed on what looked like a skid, which seemed to be built to support half sitting, half laying position, but also allowed for the pilot to sit normally.

There was a pair of levers to "entertain" the hands, but not much more.

Somewhat uncertain, Shinji jumped into the capsule, taking a shot look at the darkness before him, down in the depths of the plug, before trying to work out where exactly he was supposed to put his legs.

Just when he had succeeded, the hatch closed above him.

Sure, this wasn't suited for people with claustrophobia, but it at least, the seat was actually pretty comfy, even though the buzzing of the crane and the other mechanisms outside did little to calm him… he kept imagining what would happen to him if this metal contraption he was sitting in was to tumble into the depths of the cage below.

Then, the Plug's movements came to an abrupt halt, and some sort of clicking noise could be heard from the outside, as if something had just clicked into place, followed by a fast, smooth, almost organic movement which was probably the Plug sliding into the EVA's innermost, and at last, another click as the hatch above it closed, accompanied by the Plug finally coming to a rest in its intended position.

By then, he was already beginning to sense it. Somehow, he was feeling… really strange.

Not exactly 'tingly', but a bit like he had just washed himself or put on new clothing. Sensitized, perceiving everything on a much more conscious level, but also… refreshed, not really hemmed in anymore.

At first, it was only a minute sensation, barely noticeable, especially when he was busy processing just what he had just agreed to.

The sensation of being constricted was just one of his many worries, so that he barely registered its disappearance. He was much more concerned with what the technicians were saying, which he was probably hearing over some sort of intercom system now that he was inside EVA 01.

"Begin contact."

He could not see the eyes of the purple behemoth lighting up, but he _did_ feel _something._

"Entry Plug is being filled."

Surprised about that report and a sudden noise that followed it, he looked down, only to see that it was already in the process of submerging his hands and feet, 'it' being an orange-red liquid that appeared to be a bit thicker than water and was rapidly filling the capsule.

"H-Hey, what is this?"

If the process had been slower, the substance's particular stench or its pleasant temperature reminiscent of what the water inside a bath tub would ideally be like might have caught his attention, but right now; his only concern was to hold his breath as fast as he could before the fluid would cover his head.

"Don't worry." He heard Dr. Akagi's voice coming from the command center. "The LCL surrounding you will supply you with Oxygen, so just breathe it in.

That was much easier said than done, given that any human's basic instinct dictated them _not_ to let anything liquid enter their lungs.

On the other hand, the reflex to breathe was strong as well, so that Shinji couldn't help but release that swarm of air bubbles much earlier than he would have preferred, unwillingly trading it for a lungful of the sticky liquid around him. Nonetheless, those very same instincts instantly insisted on getting rid of that very substance, leaving him to fight his coughing- and gaging reflexes for a few very unpleasant moments. "I think I'm going to throw up…" he stated, looking bad enough to support his claim.

In the meantime, the technicians outside were busy removing more and more of these security restraints, working to get the EVA online as fast as they could.

More and more, he felt himself becoming aware of that… strange Sensation, as he heard some opaque technobabble concerning something called "contact phases.".

What happened next left him speechless for two reasons: Firstly, these was again that refreshing, pleasant feeling, but this time much stronger, more intense, as if something had opened and liberated him somehow.

It was, as if some sort of Gate had opened in the back of his mind, letting its contents flow into a vast expanse, but also… letting something flow into _him._ At first, it felt somewhat uncomfortable, but then he noticed that it wasn't anything bad that was reaching him there, surrounding his very being like a warm embrace…

Of course, he wasn't really given the time or the peace to consciously register or reflect on this alien sensation – not with that spectacle playing out in front of his eyes.

At first, the inside of the Plug simply lit up, which was more comforting than anything else, but that was just the beginning, it didn't stop there.

There was a light, coming from its far end, like a wave, and the next thing he knew was finding himself in a sheer endless, featureless red expanse.

The entire walls, save for his sleigh-like sitting arangements, were just gone.

Next, there was…a glistening, a spiral of black and white, a pattern inviting him to follow it to its radiant center.

Then there was even more light, even more red, and blue, in an almost honeycomb-like pattern…

This and much more rushed past his eyes in a matter of seconds and then… then his sight was clear.

Shinji blinked in disbelief.

He could… really see, as if there were some metal frames, and beyond them, not even glass or screens, but just… sight, as if he were seeing through the EVA's eyes.

All the talk coming from Dr. Akagi and her co-workers suggested that this meant… something good, or at least, they all sounded pleasantly surprised.

"Plug depth stable at 180, and synch ratio… at 41,3%!" a young female technician – Ibuki Maya, as he would later learn – remarkably impressed, as if she had just witnessed a miracle.

Her superior seemed to agree. "And he's not even wearing a plug suit!"

"The harmonix-values are all normal, everything's ready!"

"All right then!" he heard Misato say. "Prepare for launch!"

The last restraints holding the EVA, including entire walls started to move away, amongst them the small bridge Shinji had been standing on earlier. Last, but not least, the _entire thing_ started moving, the entire platform the EVA's were standing on moving towards the launch pad, past numerous platforms, contraptions and, of course, countless uniformed Nerv employees.

With a spark of determination on his features, Shinji witnessed the platform the EVA was on reaching the facilities that were probably intended to propel it to the surface.

A few bolts clicked into place, some hatches opened up, and then, everything was in place.

"All systems ready for launch." Dr. Akagi reported.

"Understood." Misato answered, turning towards her superior, who had returned to Central Dogma in the meantime, taking his place on a platform that stood somewhat higher than the one Misato, Dr. Akagi and their three industrious subordinates.

He sat there, bowed forward a little, supporting his elbows on the table and his face on his entwined fingers.

"May I give the order?"

"Of course." The Commander affirmed dryly. "As long as the Angels aren't defeated, none of us has a future."

But his subordinate, standing next to him on the very same platform, didn't seem to be able to shake off his doubts. "Ikari… are we doing the right thing?"

He didn't get any answer, but the thin smile that Ikari hid beneath his gloved hands said more than a thousand words. **  
**

* * *

"And Launch!"

Whoever was responsible of pressing the button that started the EVA did his job swiftly, making the EVA shoot towards the surface immediately as its pilot was pressed into his seat by the g-forces.

Back on the surface, the angel kept moving through the city with its thundering steps, occasionally glancing around as if it were searching for something.

Originally, it had been intending to just walk past this huge street as it didn't hold any meaning to it, but then, it appeared to notice something and stopped, and for a good reason, as evidenced by EVA 01 surfacing on this very spot.

The neon green markings on its armor glowing in the dark made for an impressive spectacle as the two combatants finally faced each other amidst the skyscrapers of neo Tokyo-3.

"Are you ready, Shinji-kun?"

"Yeah…"

"Remove the last safeties! EVA 01, LIFT OFF!"

One last bolt next to the purple titan's feet unlocked, as did one close to its shoulders; The great war machine finally stood on its own feet.

"Shinji-kun, just imagine yourself walking." Dr. Akagi explained.

The late revelation that this thing was apparently thought-controlled explained this strange interface, but did little to alleviate Shinji's growing nervousness.

Agreeing to sit inside of this was one thing.

Actually using it to fight a monster was another.

It was all up to him now, and he had never done anything like that in his life…

"…Walking…"

EVA 01 actually, if a bit heavy-handedly, began to move, and it weren't just the legs that budged, either – there was also an accompanying motion of the arms.

Nonetheless, Shinji still failed to control the purple titan's full strength – His first, somewhat awkward step demolished a phone booth, amongst other things.

Regardless of that, the command center still filled itself with sounds of wonder.

"It works!" Dr. Akagi said, subsuming the many expressions of pleasant surprise.

Not that any of it served to calm Shinji – quite the opposite; he would have preferred it if they _wouldn't_ assume that he was any good at this.

"Walking…"

He placed the second foot far too close to the first one, shifted the giant's immense weight far too early, and was rewarded by falling first to his knees and then, flat on his face.

Wait a minute, _his_ face?

It was the EVA that had fallen, but somehow, Shinji was the one frantically clutching his face, trying to pry off a metal mask that simply wasn't there – all his fingers could find was cold sweat, and the amount increased substantially when he realized that he'd fallen directly before the feet of the monster he'd seen this afternoon.

In the meantime, the Angel had grown a new, mask like face with a slightly shorter "beak" even though the – notably battered – old one was still hanging besides it. It might owe that injury to the very same bomb that had introduced him to Misato's sizeable bust, who (Misato, not her bust) was now urging him to stand up. But that was much easier said than done.

He wasn't sure whether to blame it on the sheer shock of having _really felt_ (and, in fact, still feeling) the pain of having tumbled to the ground, on the angel's remarkable speed or to admit the simple old panic that horrible, reality-defying thing evoked in him, but before he was remotely capable of producing a reaction, the angel had eyed him with what bizarrely resembled a suspecting glance, gripped his face as if it was some sort of doorknob, pulled him into the air and decided that it really, really disliked him.

A shot of pure, unadulterated horror shot through Shinji's veins as the thing appeared to stare _straight into his eyes._

…..PERVERSION…BLASPHEMY….

(?)

That state only lasted for a few seconds, after which the Angel gripped Shinji's Arm and decided to pull on his opponent like it was a rubber chicken.

"Calm down, Shinji-kun! That's not _your_ Arm!"

Right. And what the Angel had just gripped and lifted hadn't been _his_ face either. It was that of EVA 01.

But… this pain… this _pain_ ….just how was this possible? Was it because the Eva was thought-controlled? It was so horrible!

Shinji grabbed his own Arm and squeezed, but he couldn't make the pain stop, couldn't stop the Angel from pulling. There were several reports coming from the command center, but they hardly even got through to his conscious self anymore. The angel kept pulling and squeezing and-

KRACK.

The Evangelion's arm dangled downwards in an unnatural angle.

Shinji couldn't even scream.

Of course, his own bone was perfectly intact and directly under his nose, but at this point, he could hardly differentiate where he stopped and the Eva began. It was simply far too overwhelming for his weak and unprepared mind, all that flow, that noise, the pain, the borders of this enormous form that wasn't his but threatened to become his, and there wasn't a single thing he could do to stop this.

He couldn't stop the Angel as it lifted its enemy high into the air after having tired of it, loading some sort of energy weapon that was prepared in a way that involved a column of light on the beast's elbow.

The last thing the third Child got to see was a light building up between the creature's claws that held 'his' skull in their tight, deadly grip.

"Shinji-kun, escape!"

But the Angel didn't leave him any chance to.

BAM. BAM. BAM.

At point-blank range. Again and again. Straight into the face. Shinji kept frantically clutching his eye and the part of his skull that felt like it could burst apart at any moment… he could practically hear it crack – or was it that of Unit One?

He couldn't even think about it anymore, overcome so much pain, agony and suffering that he felt like he might just explode from the inside at any moment, tortured by a foreign object in parts of his skull that felt perfectly intact to his fingers – or had they just cracked open under the pressure from the Angel's steady bombardment?

With his feet hanging over the ground and his hands seemingly both hanging down uselessly and pressed to his skull, there wasn't anything he could do, and even if there were, the unending torment hardly left him any time to think.

If only someone would help him.

Oh, how he longed for someone to take him into their arms and tell him that everything was all right.

But such a person didn't exist. He was all alone in this thing and he knew all too well that no one was coming to save him.

The angel mercilessly continued its assault, and its efforts were rewarded: After many fruitless attempts, it had succeeded in piercing the skull on the EVA, its attack bursting through the other side, throwing the violet giant against a building.

Without resistance, the EVA instantly slumped down, motionless save for the fountain of blood spraying from both holes in the biological machine's head.

But even that didn't last forever, leaving the many instruments connected to the control center to pick up only one single thing as they scanned EVA 01: Complete silence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) "Garuda" is an eagle-like being from Hindu mythology. When someone gets dealt a severe defeat in any myths or legends, that's often likened to Garuda swooping down on snakes. The title was chosen for various reasons : a) That's also what the song was called which I was listening to while writing part of this, a really badass-sounding instrumental piece from a Game called "Devil Survivor". It should be available on YouTube. I haven't played the game, tough, it's my brother who introduced me to the music. b) Sachiel is vaguely bird-like, and he effortlessly trashes Shinji in this. c) Shinji probably feels like some scared little animal being targeted by a huge bird of prey whenever Gendo stares down at him like he does in the Cage scene.
> 
> (2) Any further quotes/Songs that aren't English will, of course, have a translation beneath them as well.
> 
> (3) Look forward to the next chapter, 05: [Long Dream], for the resolution of that evil cliffhanger and a closer look at the world our (anti-)hero now lives in, not necessarily in that order.


	6. 05: [Long Dream]

_Every day streets are crowded with people_

_Every night streets are jammed with these noises_

_Things are so strange, are they real or a dream?_

_Where am I now, trapped in city of illusion?_

_Feel the people, hear the voices_

_They are reaching out to catch you_

_Feel the rhythms, hear the noises_

_You are beating all the visions_

_Is it angels, is it devils_

_Whispering in my ears?_

_Is it emotions, is it illusions?_

_I need to be with you_

_Every day noises are killing these people_

_Every night noises are waiting for me, but_

_Don't run away, we've got no time left to fear_

_Where are you now, still it's showing me illusions_

_Feel the people, hear the voices_

_They are reaching out to catch you_

_Feel the rhythms, hear the noises_

_You are beating all the visions_

_In this long dream, can you find me?_

_Want you to you call my name_

_In this hazard, chance of survival_

_I need to be with you_

_Makiko Noda, 'The world ends with you (Long Dream)'_

* * *

There was something warm ascending, a gentle blending, a soft, warm, pleasant place, a familiar scent, a simple feeling of security.

It was mostly dark, but he could feel some light falling inside.

Somehow, it was as if he were sitting in that train again, the train to hell, the train were those who weren't good enough got sent to, those who had failed to behave properly, those who hadn't been useful… It was, as if he were hearing his father's voice.

Yet paradoxically, nothing in this place seemed to be threatening, and even in the deepest recesses of his heart, he felt neither fear nor despair.

Quite on the contrary, being here felt soothing and agreeable, like floating in water, except that the liquid's warmth seemed to surround him entirely, a sensation of complete peace which he had only known from the most distant of his memories.

"So, have you made your decision?"

"Shinji for a boy, and Rei for a girl."

"Shinji, Rei… Shinji…"

She laughed. Apparently, she liked the name.

Who was she?

He didn't know.

But she was warm.

She was the very voice of the warmth surrounding him.

She was the glistening spots of light on a surface of water seen from below, the glistening on the warm sun on warm water.

A familiar warmth.

She was something familiar… yes, that's just it, something familiar…

He thought she was something like family.

"Shinji…"

"Ayanami." There was something cold and foreign breaking the flow, something repulsive, something that was horribly wrong. He could still feel that warmth, but now, it was more sloshing around or running in circles than it was flowing to him, he kept a part of her, but within himself, almost like a memory.

A memory of a time… before his time.

A memory of heaven.

"Shinji… Rei…"

There was a memory of things he didn't completely understand, but nonetheless, he was somehow starting to process it.

"Rei…? Ikari Rei?"

"No. Ayanami Rei."

And as if that word were some deadly insult, a sacrilege, as if he had just named all seven deadly sins by their Latin titles, he was abandoned by the light and the warmth, leaving him inside the cold darkness.

What was it, anyway, this… premonition?

"Rei!"

And there she came, that naked, distorted crime against nature, speeding towards him and piecing his very soul with its monstrous, empty eyes wide open.

* * *

By the time Shinji had opened his eyes, he was no longer able to say what sort of fright had made him do so, only that he had been petrified with fear.

That was to say, he… couldn't really remember.

But it would definitely make a lot of sense: Every cubic centimeter of his body felt like terror had torn just its way right through it, like his adrenaline levels had only just been given the chance to recede.

Moreover, both his heartbeat and his breathing also appeared to be in the process of calming down…

It was truly strange… somehow, he felt… naked, as if he had been pulled out of warm water or away from a soft blanket, but he couldn't recall any reason for him to be missing anything warm, for whatever place he'd ended up in was filled with the same heat that had become this world's daily torment ever since the day of second impact. On top of that, he was lying in a bed, in a room that was so flooded with what he first mistook for daylight, that all the colors around him appeared unnaturally faded and wan.

Indecisively, Shinji sat up.

The entire wall he was facing consisted of nothing but large windows. So that's where all that light was coming from.

It looked like…

This seemed to be… some sort of hospital. The nightgown he was wearing at the moment which was soft, clean, yet nonetheless devoid of any characteristic, familiar scents certainly supported that theory. Apparently, he'd been given a single room.

Perturbed, Shinji noticed that the liquid that was sticking to his forehead and attaching the backside of his nightgown to his body was in fact cold sweat.

And there was yet another alien sensation, perhaps a remnant of some sort of emotion, that clung to his skin even more than the sweat did.

Shinji let himself fall back on his pillow, just lying there, letting both the light and that strange afterglow take their effects.

This room even had a lamp, as if the architect had aimed for a deliberate overkill as far as illumination was concerned.

He'd never seen that sort of lamp with those neon tubes beneath a plastic covering – There had been no such lamp in his teacher's house, and he knew that better than anyone – over the years, he had memorized every ever so small detail on all ceilings in that mansion, most of all, the one in his own room.

But this relatively new, still immaculate white roughcast that didn't leave any features for the observer's eye to rest on was completely foreign to his eyes. It was…

"…An unknown ceiling…"

* * *

Elsewhere, the much-needed cleanup efforts had already begun.

The new morning's light fell on a large crater right in the middle of the city, not to speak of the buildings that were broken apart, slumped over like oversized domino bricks and the thick, red liquid that covered it all.

* * *

"The advent of the fourth angel and its annihilation, the emergence of the long awaited Third Child, and the successful activation of EVA unit one… everything is developing as we have foreseen it."

"…except for the enormous repair costs for unit one…"

"And those are still minor compared to the budget for the prototype which is still inactive!"

* * *

"The salvage operation has been completed." Ibuki reported as she worked the buttons and levers on some kind of machine. Hers was only one of the many forms standing on yesterday's battlefield, almost indistinguishable from each other in their orange hazard suits.

"EVA 01 is already in cage six – inspection and repair work will probably take several days…"

"What about the data recorder?" Another such orange-clad figure asked, scanning her surroundings with her binoculars.

"It's blank. There were no values measured at all."

"So, we don't even know _why_ it went out of control. And that means…" Misato removed the binoculars to reveal an expression that was somewhere between worry and suspicion. "…that we can't vouch for its reliability without lying."

* * *

"Minor malfunctions are acceptable; as long as you make sure that it is fit for battle when the fifth angel arrives."

"Do not worry." Ikari assured them matter-of-factly, again supporting his face with his entwined fingers. "Unit one isn't our only weapon. In Germany, they have already begun the final test stage of unit two and its pilot."

"…but don't forget that the completion of unit three must also be advanced!"

"We have left both Nerv and the EVAs in your hands! Don't disappoint us!"

"I concur! The destructionof the angels is only a part of our covenant with Lillith! The human instrumentality project is to be treated with the highest priority. It is the focus of all our attention!"

"I am aware of that." The Commander confirmed. "Everything will follow SEELE's scenario."

* * *

In the meantime, Misato and her co-workers had retreated beneath a small pavilion from where the entire data analysis and decontamination processes were being overseen.

Its equipment included a TV in front of which Misato had placed herself, where she was now, after having removed her helmet, zapping through the channels – not that it did any good: There was the same thing being broadcasted on every single one of them.

"Scenario B-22." She commented as she provided herself some cool with a little fan. She had tied her hair up for today's inspection, presumably to keep it from blocking the rather small view in her helmet. "Seems like the public is being kept in the dark once again…"

Dr. Akagi, who was still working on the analysis of the samples she had taken, appeared to have a much more relaxed view of the issue: "At least the public relations department is happy that they finally got some work to do."

"Everyone seems to be fairly optimistic here, don't they…?"

"Well, the truth is all of us are afraid."

"Of course…"

* * *

Beyond the fingers of his own hand and the thick glass it was touching, Shinji spotted some real, forest-covered hills. The brightness shining down from above was virtually indistinguishable from real daylight. The Third Child still had trouble believing just how large this entire cave had to be; He couldn't begin to fathom how they could possibly have built this.

To be honest, he was surprised that it existed _at all_.

After all the crazy things he had witnessed here, he had been half expecting to wake up in his familiar little room with its familiar little ceiling if he just let himself sink back into his pillow, but so far, his waiting for that to occur had been in vain.

He was here, all alone, on his own, and all those crazy events had actually taken place.

He felt like he had been thrown into a completely foreign world, like a space station or something like that; everything was somehow filled to the brim with Science-Fiction-movie-like levels of advanced technology, if not just downright surreal like, underground trees for example.

He had been awake for a while and no one had come to check on him, so he had simply stood up and left his room, beyond which he had found a similarly light-filled hallway waiting for him.

He still felt a little… _washed out_ , that strange sensation was still clinging to his skin, refused to let go and left him with a feeling of numbness that only seemed to support his conclusion that all of this was bound to be some sort of dream.

He could feel the cold metal of the window frame beneath his fingers, but it didn't feel real, the sensations were… delayed as if he'd only _been told_ that he was currently touching metal.

His sense of hearing appeared to be the least affected by that strange state; the chirping of the cicadas, the twittering of birds, it all reached him in all of its details, filling his head, feeling almost _too_ real.

Hence, the first outside stimulus to get a proper reaction out of him was the clamant rattling of an opening door. At first, he felt like he had been shaken awake, but as the source of the noise, a metal hospital bed, was being wheeled past him, subsequently instigating him to turn around, he still felt as if he were watching this from a long distance or through a screen, from where it wouldn't have any consequences for him to stop and stare shamelessly.

Fascinated, he observed the bed, the instruments and IVs attached to it, and most of all, the patient.

Still wrapped into her bandages as tightly as the day before, the porcelain girl slid through his field of vision without the slightest motion.

With her arms and head still partially shrouded in cast and gauze, she looked just as fragile, and even less real as the brightness within the corridor muted her sparse colors even more.

This time, her strange rubber clothing had been replaced by a white, loose-fitting nightgown much like the one currently covering his body. It only left vague hints to trace the shape of her breasts, but that left him the allure of the unknown, the knowledge that every tiny shifting of the fabric could reveal something new, just a little more of these tempting elevations that were currently left to fantasy, which had always been known to produce more pristine constructs than reality.

If the impossible red of her single, uncovered eye hadn't been pretty much the only color in his field of vision that hadn't had any intensity choked out of it by this place's light, he might have begun to wonder if she was a figment of his imagination, and in stark contrast to their first meeting, those very eyes were focusing on him and him alone.

Nonetheless, Shinji couldn't bring himself to do or say anything, and so he continued to just stand there, with all these overflowing doubts and questions still bubbling inside of him as she disappeared around the corner.

Shinji lowered his gaze.

The least he should have done was to say hello and ask for her name.

What had his father and Misato called her yesterday?

Rei? Ayanami Rei?

* * *

In the meantime, Misato, Ibuki and Dr. Akagi had boarded a small plane that was supposed to bring them from their outpost in the blood-stained crater back to headquarters. By then, the three of them had all discarded their hazard suits in favor of their usual outfits.

"So that's the result of an Angel's AT-Field collapsing upon its destruction…" the young technician commented, with notable hints of discomfort in her voice. "It looks like a Sea of blood… Almost like right after Second Impact… The very thought of it still makes me shiver…"

"Our EVA has defeated the Angel." Stated Misato, her eyes locked onto her cross-shaped pendant which she apparently hadn't put on yet. "And that means… that humanity might still have a sparkle of hope left."

"So you really think we have a Chance?"

"Well, hope is part of human existence, don't you think so as well?"

"Your optimism is consoling if nothing else… And by the way, the pilot those hopes rest on has just woken up." Dr Akagi reported, putting down the earpiece of the phone over which she had supplied her with that information.

Nearly instantly, Misato appeared to have forgotten her own musing and shifted into a straighter position that would allow her to look into her friend's face more comfortably.

"…How badly is he injured?"

"Physically? Not at all. But his memory is somewhat jumbled."

"Are you saying that he's suffered a mental contamination?"

"Nothing quite that dramatic." The blonde assured.

Misato just sighed and lent back in her seat, obviously relieved.

"Yeah, you're probably right… It's probably just that it all happened so fast…"

"It's hardly a surprise. His nervous system was put under some serious strain…"

"Don't you mean his soul?"

* * *

After a while, Shinji was noticed by one of the nurses and brought before the physician who was currently on duty to be examined.

Shinji had meekly complied and endured it all uncomplainingly.

He answered the medic's questions by nodding, shaking his head, or, when it couldn't be avoided, as little words as possible, and followed every instruction without protest.

The tests were quite thorough and very extensive: When they were done with him, there wasn't any ever so insignificant part of his body that hadn't been checked at least twice, supposedly as a mere precaution, since he was the first person to ever synchronize with an EVA without long preparations and months of training, not to mention the tremendous strain which being sent into a traumatic battle without any time to adapt and the 'unpredicted malfunctions' must have put on him – He was, after all, the only pilot that was currently available to this installation.

Ultimately, he was told that he hadn't incurred any permanent damage, and given back his clothes which had been washed and cleansed of the sticky liquid from within the entry plug in the meantime, after was, for some unfathomable reason, asked for his measurements and his favorite color.

"…blue..." was his apathetic answer.

After he had gotten dressed, he was led into the medical department's waiting room which thanks to some large, triangular windows was also drenched in light.

Those strange sensations had begun to fade, but he could still feel them, right beneath his skin.

Deeply perturbed, he stared at his arm.

Somehow he still couldn't believe that he wasn't injured in the slightest.

Still, he did cease his observation of his forearm when he heard the sound of nearing steps.

It was only when they had ceased that the boy chose to look up.

It was Misato.

"So, how are you?"

"I… I can't really say… the Doctor says I'm going to be fine, though."

"I've already been informed. That's good."

"…Misato-san?"

"…What is it?"

"…What's going to happen to me now, Misato-san?"

The woman could practically smell just how lost the boy had to be feeling, and she didn't like it one bit. Perhaps because those feelings of his were something she could relate to all too well.

"Well, I… I'm sorry to tell you that, but the thing is, that creature you fought… we call it an 'Angel'. And we have reason to think that more of them are going to attack." She explained with a serious expression. "…and since only very few people in the world have the ability to control an Evangelion…We're going to have to keep you here in Tokyo 3.

For the safety of us all."

"I see…"

Misato failed to hide her irritation. After his initial categorical refusal to get into the EVA and all the suffering he'd been put through inside of it… he just said yes?

It wasn't that she hadn't wanted him to – She certainly wanted the Angels destroyed for various reasons many of which were very much her own, personal motivations, and she had already thought up numerous arguments to persuade him to stay, but she had expected to need every single one of them and now, they had all remained unused.

She just couldn't make sense of the boy… any blind cripple would have been able to see how much he longed to be anywhere but here.

"So then let's go so you can move into your new home as soon as possible!" Misato offered in a fruitless attempt to brighten his mood, her enthusiasm not entirely geniuine.

Alas, he didn't seem to feel like being cheered up.

Nevertheless, he still followed her instructions and left alongside her, so that they soon found themselves waiting for one of the countless Elevators in Nerv HQ.

So far, Shinji had gotten the impression that you couldn't even take a trip to the bathroom in this building without riding at least three lifts.

However, his gratitude for the elevator's swift arrival lasted only as long as it took for its reddish doors to confess that it already harbored a passenger.

Before them stood the upright, broad-shouldered form of Ikari Gendo, without doubt, one brilliant politician, scientist and strategist, but as far as pedagogics were concerned, it was Misato who had some advice to offer to her superior. For example, it would really help if he wasn't staring at the boy like a senior citizen eying some newfangled apparatus.

At first, Misato thought that he might have come to get his son, but the longer the frosty silence between the two Ikaris lasted, the more she was convinced that whatever errand the older man had come here for was at best very peripherally related to Shinji.

The latter didn't do much except evading his father's gaze, thus letting the elevator doors close again without anybody getting inside it.

Misato didn't know what she was supposed to say – especially _because_ the whole situation felt so uncomfortably familiar to her.

Even as they reached the escalator, she maintained her distance to that boy who seemed so similar and, at the same time, so different from herself.

* * *

"Oh, Commander Ikari, I wasn't expecting you!" The physician, a curly-haired young man, turned around in surprise. "If you came to see your son, I'm sorry to report that you just missed him, Sir."

"There is no problem with that. If I had wished to see him, I would have called in advance." The Commander answered dryly as he carefully removed his white gloves, revealing the thin bandages he still wore beneath.

"Change this." Ikari ordered, holding his disfigured hands out to the medic.

The younger man swiftly donned a pair of disposable rubber gloves, went to collect a few utensils such as new bandages and a reddish salve and begun to change his superior's bandages under his vigilant eyes, handling him with a degree of care that one would use with the boss of one's boss' boss.

"It should be fully healed soon." He reported as he threw the old bandages into a bin reserved for such disposals. "Starting with next week, it will probably be enough if you just put that salve on once in a while. I fear that these scars are permanent, though. I don't think much can be done, but if you want, I'll recommend you some good plastic surgeon."

"That won't be necessary." Ikari stated in a businesslike fashion. "What's the status of the pilots?"

"I've already discharged your son. He wasn't injured, it's just that his nervous system needed to time to snap back to 'business as usual' after being put under such stress. It's probably just because he started out with such a high synch rate. I'd recommend to leave him be for today, but technically, he's fit to begin his training at any time."

"Very well. And what about Rei?"

"The worst is over. Today, we were able to transfer her from intensive care to a regular room. Her state has stabilized since yesterday, but… she really shouldn't have been standing up. Her injuries were severe… to the point that the broken bones are the least thing to worry about… You have seen for yourself how hot that entry plug was… Her plug suit protected her from external burns, but since she was _breathing_ the overheated LCL, she suffered numerous internal injuries… Her wounds were healing badly and slowly to begin with, and now, half of them have reopened. It doesn't help that she is a …special case."

"…There wasn't any other available pilot at the time. It was fortunate that sending her into battle could be avoided." The Commander stated matter-of-factly. "When can she be used?"

"Not for a while. It will probably take even _longer_ now… If there aren't any new complications, we will be discharging her in about twenty days, but it will take an entire month before she's back to full health. "

"I see. Keep Doctor Akagi informed about her state."

"Yes, Sir."

"…can I see her?"

The young physician reacted with slight irritation.

Until now, he'd gotten the impression that the Commander's visit here was of strictly professional nature. He hadn't even asked for his own son and his concern about the pilots only seemed to extend as far as their "usability", and now, he wanted to pay the First Child a visit?

Sure, the papers listed him as her guardian, but if he didn't even ask for his own flesh and blood….

Well, in any case, it didn't concern him and the Commander was waiting for an answer.

"Of course. She is right over here."

Ikari put his gloves back on, stepped into her hospital room and, contrary to the young physician's expectations, the usually notoriously busy Commander of NERV remained in there for several full minutes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) As you might have seen, I mostly used the Rebuild variant of the dialogue, tough I tried to insert "missing" bits from the original series. It suited my plan.
> 
> (2) If you'd like to see how our lovely protagonist finds a place to stay (or the conclusion of the battle) stay tunes for Chapter 06:[Home Sweet Home]


	7. 06: [Home Sweet Home]

_When there's nowhere else to run_

_Is there room for one more son?_

_One more son_

_If you can hold on_

_If you can hold on_

_Hold on_

_I want to stand up, I want to let go_

_You know, you know - no you don't, you don't_

_I want to shine on in the hearts of men_

_I want a meaning from the back of my broken hand_

_Another head aches, another heart breaks_

_I am so much older than I can take_

_And my affection, well it comes and goes_

_I need direction to perfection, no no no no_

_Help me out_

_Yeah, you know you got to help me out_

_Yeah, oh don't you put me on the backburner_

_You know you got to help me out_

_And when there's nowhere else to run_

_Is there room for one more son_

_These changes ain't changing me_

_The cold-hearted boy I used to be_

_Help me out_

_Yeah, you know you got to help me out_

_Yeah, oh don't you put me on the backburner_

_You know you got to help me out[_

_You're gonna bring yourself down_

_I've got soul, but I'm not a soldier_

_Help me out_

_Yeah, you know you got to help me out_

_Yeah, oh don't you put me on the backburner_

_You know you got to help me out[_

_You're gonna bring yourself down_

_You're gonna bring yourself down_

_Yeah, oh don't you put me on the backburner_

_You're gonna bring yourself down_

_Over and again, last call for sin_

_While everyone's lost, the battle is won_

_With all these things that I've done_

_All these things that I've done_

_If you can hold on_

_If you can hold on_

_The Killers, 'All these Things that I've done'_

* * *

"Is it really okay for them to live apart?"

"Most certainly. For Commander Ikari and his son, it's the most normal thing in the world to be separate from each other."

"…and living together would feel unnatural to them?"

* * *

"What…? All alone?"

"Exactly. His new room will be here, in block six. Our colleagues from security should be arriving shortly to escort him there. Do you have any further questions?"

"No, I don't."

Once again, there wasn't a single complain where there should have been dozens.

"Are you sure about that, Shinji-kun?"

The fourteen year old just stood there, regarding her with a broken smile and speaking with almost unsettling nonchalance: "It's all right. I don't mind being alone. After all, I've always been alone until now."

That was enough. She couldn't and wouldn't accept this any longer.

* * *

Misato had hoped to find the Commander in his office – In truth, she spent a few minutes waiting in that gigantic, empty room for the arrival of its owner.

The drawings on ceiling and flooring were enough to keep her eyes busy for a while, but Misato still reached the conclusion that the interior designer they'd employed when they built this place must've been utterly clueless – the desk was practically standing in the middle of a huge void. Putting a few potted plants around it certainly wouldn't have done any harm.

But what she had planned to discuss with the commander when he ultimately returned from where ever he had been was not his taste in furniture – She would be damned if she allowed herself to act the tiniest bit less than professional in this sort of situation.

"…Captain Katsuragi?" Her employer asked as soon as he had stepped through the doorframe. "I have been told that you have requested an urgent meeting. So tell me, what is so important that you couldn't wait for an appointment?"

"I have a request. One that concerns the only pilot we currently have. If I remember rightly, the Third Child is to be accommodated on his own."

"That is correct."

"Well, as head of the operations department, it is my responsibility to maximize the efficiency of the Evangelions, part of which is the operational readiness of the pilots, which is also what worries me, particularly in the case of the Third Child. Just getting him to cooperate with us at all took a great deal of persuasion. I am of course aware that he, as all the pilots, will be placed under constant surveillance, however, for the sake of monitoring him even more efficiently and to ensure his motivation, I would propose to assign him a supervisor. To avoid unnecessary security risks, I am prepared to take that role myself.

Therefore, I ask to be given custody of the Third Child with all associated duties and responsibilities for the duration of the angel threat."

Ikari's expression remained unchanging as he answered, not taking as much as a second to ponder her thoughts.

"Your proposition does indeed seem expedient. I allow it. You are dismissed."

Misato struggled to hide her surprise.

He actually agreed…?

Just like that?

Sure, she had come because she _wanted_ him to agree, but what sort of person would just hand over guardianship over their own child without a moment's hesitation, at that,to someone they barely knew from work?

Of course, she didn't know of the words that had gotten stuck in her superior's throat: "Do what I cannot do."

* * *

"You WHAT?"

"No, no, you got that right. Shinji-kun is going to be staying at my place from now on.

My apartment is big enough and his father has already agreed to it. – Don't worry, I'm not planning on taking his virginity."

The reaction to the last comment produced such ghastly noises on the other end of the line that Misato was forced to hold the phone as far from her ear as her arm's length allowed it to protect her eardrums.

"Some people just don't have a sense of humor…"

* * *

Not long after this, Misato and her dented blue car were on their way through the tunnes leading to the surface. Shinji, who had allowed himself to be dragged along without comments, was next to her in the front seat, with a thick brown envelope containing his documents on his lap.

He still looked a bit lost.

"So, tonight is party time, then!"

"Uhm… a party…?" he asked as if he was struggling to remember a foreign word for a vocabulary test.

"Of course! You're supposed to hold a welcome party when someone moves in with you."

* * *

Part of the preparations for that allegedly indispensable party was a short stop at the local supermarket.

Enthusiastically, Misato grabbed some instant food, packet soup, beverage cans, various nibbles and, perhaps the icing on the cage, multiple packages of one-way chopsticks.

Shinji meekly followed after her, and did as she said whenever she asked him to get something.

This was only a relatively small supermarket that probably earned most of its income with the immediate residents of the area. The shelves stood closely together and yet, the boy found a variety of products unseen in the small village shops next to his teacher's house.

These 'Dorritos' were imported, right…?

In any case, many little details, amongst them the cold light of the supermarket's neon tubes added much to his already strong feeling of being out of place.

He had come with this woman because he hadn't wanted to cause anyone any further trouble and because he hadn't seen a reason _not_ to follow her, but he didn't know if he really had any business being with her.

Was she doing this… because of him, or rather… to make sure that he'd be ready to willingly step into that metal abomination at any given moment?

Sooner or later, her way led them to the checkout, which, in turn, was in the proximity of the exit.

Since the shop was, as mentioned before, rather small, he could understand every single word of what these two women who were currently in the process of leaving this establishment were conversing about.

"So you're planning on moving away as well?"

"Yes, as quickly as possible. Who could have thought that this city could become a battlefield?"

"My husband says that at least the children and I should leave for a safer place."

"I've heard that only today, over a hundred people have left the city."

"That doesn't surprise me at all. This city might be a fortress, but these people from Nerv aren't exactly reliable…"

"Who are you telling that…"

Shinji tried his hardest not to look at the pair as they walked past him.

Yes, what exactly _was_ he doing here? Until now, he had been trying to convince himself that even if no one could possibly want him as a person, most people here wanted him as their champion. But not even that appeared to be true.

Why was he in this place if he wasn't even wanted here?

If no one had the slightest bit of faith in him?

However, Misato hadn't failed to hear that conversation, either.

She knew that it would always remain impossible to stop people from gossiping, heck, she could even understand where those two were coming from, but she would have still distinctly preferred it if they had just shut up.

It was just plain counterproductive for Shinji to be forced to hear such things after all he had been through. She had seen for herself just how much the boy had struggled with himself, so that what he was now most likely experiencing struck her as unspeakably ungrateful.

She had to do something about it.

* * *

Before long, Misato's car was driving through the outskirts of the mountains that seemed to surround the city, somewhere close to the borders of Tokyo-3.

There might have been a more direct way to her house, but there was something she absolutely had to do here. She owed it to the boy.

At first, she hadn't really thought about it that way because it was part of her job and as such, something she regarded from the bird's eye perspective, looking at the grand schemes and big pictures, but it was a fact that this boy had saved her very own life by contributing to the Angel's defeat, and she had yet to do anything to show her gratitude.

"I hope you don't mind a little detour." She asked her new ward, whose lap she's just used to deposit her bag of groceries.

"It depends…" he answered, hesitantly.

Misato smiled at him warmly. "I think you'll like it."

Said and done: Soon after, the much abused blue car was parked next to a small viewig platform which was equipped with a guardrail and one of these binocular-like things for tourists one could use by inserting some coins.

The complexes of Tokyo-3 lay outstretched before them, streets and tall buildings resplendent in the evening sun. It was quite gigantic a city, completely filling the valley it had been built in.

Given its size, there was surprisingly little ruckus being produced down there. Even the _cicadas_ seemed to make more noise than what was supposed the home of millions of people.

In addition, there were those huge, flat, seemingly empty platforms which only added to Shinji's irritation.

"The place looks completely deserted…" But Misato didn't seem particularly concerned about the criticisms her chosen destination had received, confidently checking her watch instead.

"Any moment now."

And she hadn't promised too much: Mere instants after she finished speaking, a shrill klaxon echoed through the city, so loud that it could still be heard up here.

What changed Shinji's somber expression into one of great wonder, however, was what happened next: All those conspicuous empty spots, all these metal plains suddenly opened up like doors or hatches, and out of them, they soon sprouted into the air like mushrooms: skyscrapers! Ginormous skyscrapers with all the cables and antennas they brought with them, dwarfing all the tall buildings Shinji had seen on his way here, as huge as those had already been.

Everything looked so gigantic, so overwhelming…

It was impossible… and yet, there they were, real, proper buildings shining in the sunlight.

"Terrific… The buildings are growing out of the ground!"

Misato just smiled at him in her typical, friendly way.

"Now you know why the city is called a fortress. This is Neo Tokyo 3, our city. And… the city _you_ saved."

Shinji didn't allow himself to indulge that sentiment for long but for the duration of about half a second, but for the first time in his life, he felt like he was right where he was supposed to be.

For most people, this would have been a reason to smile, a sign of betterment, but Shinji was the sort of person who didn't know to grasp happiness when it appeared before him.

Much like he would always keep skipping back to track 25 on his cassette player by the time the next song finished playing, he never could follow one successful step forward or the opening of a new path before him by taking the next step and taking the initiative.

He just didn't dare to believe that this moment was real.

* * *

The next and last destination of their little tour was relatively unspectacular compared to the view of the fortress city: A flat in the upper stories of an apartment complex on the edge of the city.

And yet, the reaction it had managed to evoke in Shinji was just as intense, even if said reaction was, by no means on of wonder, but rather more of a crippling awkwardness.

This here was… the private residence of Katsuragi Misato.

She had actually taken him home with her.

Although he had only just met her yesterday.

Knowing neither how to process nor how to cope with nearly everything he'd been exposed to over the past few days, he uncertainly followed her through the dark corridor.

At last, she used her keycard to open the door and release a ray of golden light into the darkness.

Shinji felt the tugs longing to escape from this gloom, into a place where some actual _living_ took place, the first _real_ place he had gotten to see today.

But…

This was yet another location he was foreign to.

"Hey! Looks your stuff has already been brought here!" she stated, her tone as bright as the light she simultaneously stepped into.

It was only natural for her to walk right inside – After all, she lived here.

"Yeah, looks like it. Actually, I just moved in here myself."

He hadn't really had the time to properly notice the multiple cardboard boxes that were waiting for him right next to be door, but he did see the light from within the apartment illuminating them.

She invited him with a smile: "Come on in!"

Sheepishly, Shinji clutched the grocery bag he was still carrying.

"B-But only if I'm… not a bother or anything…"

"Shinji-kun, this is your home now!" She declared in an almost scolding tone. "So drop all that square politeness!"

She… seemed to be serious.

Hesitantly, Shinji placed his feet beyond the automatic door's metal threshold and addressed his hostess, no, flat mate, with an awkward smile: "Uh, here I am."

"Welcome home!"

And the door closed behind him, shutting out the gloom of the night.

* * *

"I must admit, it _is_ as teensy bit untidy here, but I hope you don't mind!"

A teensy bit untidy? A _teensy bit_ untidy?

He certainly hadn't expected the home of the cool, professional Captain Katsuragi to look like _this_ , not after he had seen her taking in someone else's kid, pester him with all sorts of advice and fearlessly blazing steadfastly through the streets because she had a job to do, giant monster or no giant monster.

Okay, his expectations of finding this supremely tidy and polished to shine might've been unrealistic, but it wasn't just that his impression hadn't been correct – He was faced with the diametrical opposite here: Wherever he looked, empty coffee cans, beer cans, bottles of liquor!

En masse! Mountains of them!

The table, covered in empty wrappings and dishes, even a pizza box, half-emptied packing cases between trash bags, piles of paper and articles of clothing, leaving something of value like files or duct tape to be seen here and there, without really standing out from the surrounding chaos.

Not even the floor was spared by the avalanches of filth, being, in places, completely sunken under them just like everything else.

"…She calls this… a teensy bit…?"

"Sorry!" could be heard from the room next door, to where the origin of this tohubohu had retreated to for the purpose of changing into something more comfortable.

"Just stuff the groceries in the fridge, okay?"

"A-Alright…"

Still somewhat perplexed, Shinji decided that it would be best to just follow her request. The apartment seemed too big for one person – There was a joint living- cooking- and dining are with an European-style table in it and a nice calendar on the wall (and, as mentioned before, lots of garbage), a spacious bathroom and what was probably Misato's room… and two other, completely unused rooms one of which was probably going to become his. At least, the place was rather commodious, which made it even more of a feat that Misato had managed to flood it all with junk.

But first, he should probably find the refrigerator, which he promptly did – It was huge, apparently, Nerv paid its employees well – but when he opened it, he couldn't help but gape at the contents.

"…Ice?"

"…Relishes?"

"…And gallons of beer? This can't possibly be _all_ she lives on…" he commented, peeking through a hole in the wall of beer cans, looking distinctly uneasy, if not borderline traumatized.

After a few minutes which he used to carry his boxes inside while she spent them fumbling with her microwave oven, he got a first-hand proof that she _did_ live on instant food alone.

The table was laid – with a colorful salmagundi of all possible and impossible kinds of instant food and every imaginable mutation of canned food.

And the creator of this grotesque masterpiece sat right in front of him, cheerfully slurping the contents of a beer can.

Somehow, he had imagine that she would be… distinctly cooler.

She was so …direct, and he didn't really know how to handle it.

After emptying the beer can in a single gulp, she emitted a high-pitched sound of ecstasy, accompanied by a lopsided grin and perhaps even a few tears of joy.

"Aaaah, moments like these make life worth living!"

And he thought the things he'd seen _yesterday_ were mad.

"Aren't you hungry? You haven't touched your food. Yeah, I know, it's only instant stuff, but believe me, it's really good!"

"I… It's just that… that I'm not used… to having a meal like that…"

It wasn't as much the meal itself as it was the stream of words that accompanied it, that cheerfulness of hers and everything else about her, for that matter, he felt… somewhat intimidated by it all…. Not that he was complaining or anything, after all, he didn't have any right to tell her how to act in her own house…

If only she were a little less… in his face with everything she did.

Alright, that was probably a stupid metaphor, but he really didn't know how-

As if she had just read his mind, Misato put down her beer can for added emphasis and bowed all the way forward over the table.

"Don't be so picky!"

Shinji was forced to back down to avoid her head, including the two strands of hair hanging down from her temples.

Her loud, semi-furious voice hadn't been the only thing to motivate him to withdraw – she was currently closer to kneeling on her chair than she was to sitting on it, which meant that she had come close… closer that anyone else had ever come, not to mention that her casual clothes, consisting of a top and some jeans-hot pants that looked like part of them had been ripped off to make them even shorter, were rather… revealing.

She was probably getting some very good look at the blush on his face, which was there in the first place because his view of the… feminine masses barely hidden beneath her top was just as good, since they were practically hanging into his face.

He could only wonder whether her buttocks were similarly partially visible at the other hand, but that only served to make it all worse.

Her slightly scary tone of voice was probably the main reason, though.

Shinji didn't dare to exhibit the slightest counter reaction, mumbled something close to "Sorry, that wasn't what I meant.", but any defense mechanisms were ultimately unneeded when the expression Misato's still uncomfortably close face changed into a smile.

"I get it. You're just not used to having company while you eat, are you?"

Oh boy, that lady was _really_ well-endowed.

"Y-yeah…"

After a while, Shinji emerged from below the table and listened as Misato explained a few formalities to him, all while she kept building towers of empty beer cans too occupy her hands. A few rounds of Rock-Paper-Scissors (which once again made Shinji wonder what he could have done to anger the goddess of fortune) later, she had made sure that the household chores were "fairly distributed".

"Allright, Shinji-kun, just don't forget that this is your home here, so feel free to use everything here at your leisure…" she ultimately summarized her explanation.

"Apart from myself, of course."

Somehow, Shinji didn't really get the joke of that statement, as much as she fidgeted with her index finger to accentuate it.

"Uh, yes, yes…" he answered, hoping that getting an answer would satisfy her.

Alas, it turned out to have pretty much the opposite effect:

"Hey! Won't you quit saying "Yes" to everything? You're a _man_ and not some gloomy doormat, aren't you?"

Yeah. She had climbed on the table yet again, this time, apparently driven by a burning desire to mess up Shinji's hair. Or to snap his neck and smash in his skull, it was hard to tell.

Now that he was thoroughly confused as to what it was that she wanted from him, he hesitantly offered an uncertain "…Yes?", only releasing himself from his odd-looking posture when she let go of him with a sigh.

"All right, I give up… I think I know the solution to our little problem: Go take a nice bath and just wash your worries away!"

Somehow, she managed half a jump of excitation despite being seated, somewhat resembling a five-year-old blowing out the candles on her birthday cake.

Again, she displayed her dreaded happy-happy-go-lucky index finger.

"A nice bath cleans both body and soul!"

Well, actually, his soul didn't really feel any cleaner by the time its owner found him somewhat self-consciously gazing at the underwear which Misato had hung up to dry in the small room next to the bathroom itself.

Most of it was downright salacious, with frills, lace, semitransparent parts and all sorts of "yummy" colors like deep blue, mysterious black and a rich dark red.

Until now, he'd never seen women's underwear up close except in shop windows and television ads, and much like Misato's "light" casual clothes and pretty much her entire behavior, it made him feel a little… overloaded.

It didn't necessarily take an EVA-battle to expose his nerves to much more stimuli than his puny little brain could process at a time. To escape the feelings of embarrassment this sight subjected him to, Shinji decided to hurry up and enter the bathroom – if only he had known that the next unpleasant surprise was already awaiting him there….

"AAAAHHH! M-Mi-Mi-Mi-Misato-san!" he called, panicked, hastily pulling the curtain between him and the living room aside.

The apartment's owner who had, in the meantime, made herself comfortable by sitting cross-legged on her chair as she occupied herself with yet another can of beer (She had to have built up _quite_ some tolerance over the years) just looked at him with her large, brown eyes, appearing a little puzzled.

"…What's the matter…?"

"There's an… an… an _animal_ in the bathroom!" he spluttered as the critter in question, some sort of big, black-and-white bird with a strange backpack and a couple of red feathers on its head nonchalantly waddled into the room.

"Ah, you mean _him_." Misato answered blithely, as if it were the most normal thing in the world for outlandish birds to be waddling through the homes of single women and opening a refrigerator's door by pressing a button. (So that's what the extra fridge was for)

To make it all even madder, the bird seemed to have an entire miniature apartment in there, including a TV and a little lamp.

After giving Shinji a look that seemed to be intending to say something among the lines of "C'mon, it's not that much of a big deal." the peculiar little animal withdrew to its habitat.

Shinji, who hadn't thought that anything could shock him after the events of the last two days, kept staring into the creature's direction, his expression bordering on the aftermath of a freshly-acquired trauma.

"I-I've never seen such a weird bird in my life!"

"They were quite common fifteen years ago." Misato explained without a care in the world. "He's a penguin, one of these mutated hot-springs-penguins, to be exact. He also lives here."

If Shinji had known that his sharply dressed flat mate was currently reading a newspaper, he probably would have snapped once and for all, but even as it was, he had come to the conclusion that this old anecdote about how pets would always bear some uncanny resemblance to their owners did have some truth to it.

So much for strange ducks.

In the meantime, Misato had picked up her beer can once again.

"But say, aren't you gonna… cover the front?"

At first, Shinji didn't quite get what she meant, but then, he was forced to realize that there was some little detail he had kind of overlooked when he had stormed right out of the bathroom: He was _stark naked_ and had probably been presenting the full frontal view to Misato for almost a minute.

Not that there was much to present: The youngest scion of the Ikari family tree still had a rather boyish, delicate-looking build, the amount of visible muscle mass being puny at best.

Hastily covering his "parts" with his hands, he did his best to toddle off as fast as he could, the color of his face bearing resemblance to a ripe tomato.

"Don't overdo the cheerful façade…" Misato thought to herself, averting her eyes as her previous hyperactivity revealed itself as a desperate attempts to reach out to the silent, inaccessible youngster.

"Unless you want him to be the one who sees through _you…"_

By then, Shinji had already relocated himself to the one place where naked people usually belonged: The bathroom.

There, he followed his favorite pastime of staring at the ceiling and brooding, this time in a large bathtub filled with warm water that had been tinted red by the bathing additive he'd put in.

The ceiling of Misato's bathroom had a simple, round lamp hanging from it without many further details to it.

So there he was now, in the bathroom of him new… superior's house.

It was as the world had begun to spin in another direction yesterday.

The eternally monotonous days of his life, the few familiar rooms he'd existed in, it all seemed to be infinitely far away now.

The only thing had had given this foreign world any sort of center or something for him to hold on to was this complete stranger…

"Misato Katsuragi…" he mumbled, lost in thought.

"She doesn't seem to be a bad person…"

Yes, she had been nice to him so far, but her attitude was just a bit too much for him.

Then again, it would've been easier to list the things in this place that weren't.

He had just allowed himself to be dragged along, and simply done what everyone else had asked of him – that tended to lower the odds that someone would get angry at him or that he himself would get into trouble, but actually, none of this had anything do to with him or what he wanted.

He'd never wanted to come here in the first place.

Misato might've told him that bathing was cleaning for both body and soul, but as far as he was concerned, he couldn't shake off the impression that the silence and solitude of the bathroom gave his darker thoughts the fertilizer they needed to bloom as they pleased, thoughts of the horrors of that battle and his father's rejection… or that injured girl that his trains of thought seemed to come back to over and over again.

There was something about her that just wouldn't let him go, some realization that was practically spitting itself onto his face, a sense of recognition that was always there like a slight overlap of another face over hers, a face whose owner he still couldn't name.

* * *

"So, how is Rei? You visited her at the hospital today, didn't you?"

With a clipboard and several documents in her hands, Dr. Ritsuko Akagi was standing a few steps behind commander Ikari in the ruins of a devastated control room, in front of shattered glass panes behind which the sparsely illuminated silhouette of a colossal giant could be glimpsed. Evoking the image of Gulliver as he was tied down by the Lilliputians, the colossal Cyclops was held by a multitude of restraints: The classic handcuffs were complimented by some sort of muzzle and, last but not least, the long, green cross-like structure sticking out of the titan's back.

"There is no problem." Ikari answered to his co-worker's question, his hands placed in his pockets and his gaze transfixed on the orange monster.

"The only thing that counts is that EVA 00 is reactivated as soon as possible. I'll get a permit from the committee immediately."

"And what about your son? He seems to be mentally unstable…" Dr. Akagi added, showing some worry after all.

"That won't be a problem. His state gives us an excellent justification to reactive Unit Zero."

"All right… Let's hope that Captain Katsuragi will have a positive influence in him…"

* * *

"Ah, Ikari, there you are." Fuyutsuki commented, seemingly considering the few documents on his orderly desk something to be concerned about.

"…did you speak with Akagi?"

"Yes. Everything will continue just as planned."

"I wouldn't call the possibility of an escaped test subject roaming the streets 'just as planned'. These reports about a possible series killer disconcert me. Do you think…?"

Ikari displayed no visible change of expression.

"The killing method fits, but the behavior pattern doesn't. The defective clone slaughtered almost every human it came across; this killer of yours seeks out his victims in their houses and operates with stealth. It's no surprise for such delinquents to exist in a society that only just rebuilt from a collapse never really recovered from. People like to blame scapegoats or search for preventable reasons to 'explain' such individuals, because they fear that just about any human has the capacity for such behavior. Their fear to admit the fragility of their existence leads them to create the delusion that there is a way to protect themselves… humans really are sad, sad creatures."

"But theoretically speaking, there's nothing to prove that it _isn't_ our defective close, is there? We've already begun to enact our scenario… we can't risk any more unforeseen occurrences, Ikari."

"There won't be any. It can't affect our plan just by going on a killing spree in the city. If it _is_ the clone, we'll have it caught soon enough."

"Are you really sure about that, Ikari?

In any case, I've looked through the transfer requests. Since this installation is to be our main front, it's only natural that the bulk of our personnel is being transferred here, but these four files are all the relevant ones… even if the first two are pure formality. They're the official transfer requests for Inspector Kaji Ryoji and the Second Child."

"They're approved, of course. What about the others…?"

"First, we have a certain Mitsurugi Minoru who wants to be transferred here from Bethany Bay."

"Mitsurugi? The one who was involved with designing the Cocytus- containment systems? Wasn't he supposed to stay in Archeron? They do have Unit Five, but judging from the Data we have been given so far…"

"It's half under construction, I know. Mitsurugi lists "personal reasons" as the cause for his request… he has technically finished his work, Japan is his home, and the Arctic isn't exactly the ideal place to live…"

"In the end, most people value their own interest the most… let him come here, his presence here will be beneficial to our plan and we will undoubtedly find a way to put his abilities to good use. What about the fourth request…?"

"It is from a certain Asahina Najiko from the security division who currently works in the United States."

"And how is she relevant?"

"I think that might be one of those occasions where a picture says more than a thousand words…"

* * *

Several hundreds of meters above his father's office, the younger Ikari lay in what was to be his bed from now on, in a room that had been labeled 'Shin-chan's room' with a provisional piece of paper, some duct tape and a little heart which Misato had drawn on the former.

With his trusty Walkman in his hand which he had painstakingly dug for in the many cardboard boxes which filled the chaotic-looking and, most of all, unfinished-looking room, he lay underneath this unfamiliar blanket which kept the warmth beneath it from leaving, but hadn't yet reached a particularly cozy temperature itself.

He had stuffed the earpieces into his ears and closed his eyes to retreat from that crazy, foreign world that had done all it could to expose him to much more than he could take, at least for a while.

One could close one's eyes, but without technological aid, sounds and noises were something one was constantly subjected to, the racket and gossiping and complaining of the people around him never ceased to torment him. He guessed that it was a survival thing, since people needed to wake up when something noisy and dangerous came their way, but right now, all he wanted was a little peace and quiet which he couldn't have unless he kept his ears busy with something other than his surroundings.

So he lay there, always listening to the same song, sometimes the next one, but never the one after that. At very last when Track 26 was over, he would press the rewind button.

After a while, it got hard to keep his eyes shut, since he wasn't really tired and thinking to hardly about it (And how could he be tired already? It had only been a few hours since he had awakened in the hospital. ) and so, he gazed at the small green satchel he'd brought with him and placed right next to the door directly after his arrival with one half-opened blue eye.

The music tape ran and ran and ran, and he stared and stared and stared.

* * *

"Yes, it quite the traumatic experience for him… To be honest, I don't think that he'll ever agree to do it again…"

"But you know that it is part of your job to make sure that he's usable, don't you?"

"Yeah, but I'm afraid that I'm not really getting through to him…"

"You're already complaining? It was only today that you dramatically announced that you would take him in…"

"Oh, just shut up!" Misato snapped back at here, ending the phone call at the push of a button and placing the gadget in a safe distance from the bathtub she was currently sitting in, strangely with her hair still tied up.

The not really that genuine anger soon made way to an expression of deep thought.

"At first, even I must've seen Shinji-kun as some tool for us to use… I'm becoming just like Ritsuko…

But still, it all just fits too perfectly… First, they find the third child of all sudden without mentioning it in any report whatsoever, and then, the fourth angel shows up, as if to respond to that, not to mention that commander Ikari's own son has been chosen to pilot the EVA… Somehow, it all just reeks of conspiracies…

And that's not the only thing that's strange…" the NERV-employee commented in her thoughts, staring up at the ceiling as if her young ward had already rubbed off on her.

"I've dedicated by life to battling the Angels… and this was our first great victory… so why… am I not enjoying it?"

* * *

In the interim, Shinji had turned onto his back, but hadn't done much else. Most of his attention was, rather like his new guardian's, reserved for the ceiling above his head.

It was a pretty simple, unadorned rectangular ceiling with a small lamp hanging down in the middle, once again radically different from the one he'd gotten used to in his teacher's mansion.

"Another unfamiliar ceiling…" he mumbled pensively, putting the thoughts that had haunted him for those last two day that had seemed like a single, bizarre long dream to him, into words.

"It's only natural, I guess… after all, there isn't a single place in this whole city that I know…"

Why should he expect to find a familiar ceiling in a foreign city? There were millions of people living in this city and he was only one of them, alone in this strange, unfamiliar place he hardly belonged to.

Misato had said that this was supposed to be his home now, but to be honest, he felt just as out of place here as he did everywhere else.

"Why am I here?"

His thoughts and worries, that had already been washed out of their hiding places in the ridges of his brain would no longer let themselves be suppressed or pushed aside in the room's silent darkness, so that just one Image of EVA 01, thought up amongst his deliberations about his reason to be here, showed itself to be enough to shatter the inner Wall he had erected around yesterday's memories.

Not those of his arrival, his father's icy welcome and that Ayanami Rei girl who kept dancing through his thoughts, he saw those clearly before him.

It was other, special memories…

Horrible memories which eclipsed everything else he'd been put through.

Memories of a battle, of loud, hammering noises and ponding pain, rhythmical shots that threatened to drive his skull apart…

He could still here the reverberation of their echo, as if they were here and now.

BAM. BAM. BAM.

BAM. BAM. BAM.

_At point-blank range. Again and again. Straight into the face. Shinji kept frantically clutching his eye and the part of his skull that felt like it could burst apart at any moment… he could practically hear it crack – or was it that of Unit One?_

_He couldn't even think about it anymore, overcome so much pain, agony and suffering that he felt like he might just explode from the inside at any moment, tortured by a foreign object in parts of his skull that felt perfectly intact to his fingers – or had they just cracked open under the pressure from the Angel's steady bombardment?_

_With his feet hanging over the ground and his hands seemingly both hanging down uselessly and pressed to his skull, there wasn't anything he could do, and even if there were, the unending torment hardly left him any time to think._

_If only someone would help him._

_Oh, how he longed for someone to take him into their arms and tell him that everything was all right._

_But such a person didn't exist. He was all alone in this thing and he knew all too well that no one was coming to save him._

_The angel mercilessly continued its assault, and its efforts were rewarded: After many fruitless attempts, it had succeeded in piercing the skull on the EVA, its attack bursting through the other side, throwing the violet giant against a building._

_Without resistance, the EVA instantly slumped down, motionless save for the fountain of blood spraying from both holes in the biological machine's head._

_But even that didn't last forever, leaving the many instruments connected to the control center to pick up only one single thing as they scanned EVA 01: Complete silence._

_Now, if one were to define Silence as the absence of words rather than that of sound, if one were to restrict the meaning of the word to a lack of information exchange, then it could be said that the inside of Shinji's head was silent as well. His thoughts failed to take the shape of words, all that filled his skull was an absolute mental outcry that didn't leave the blackness of the entry plug through the pilot's mouth, but very much through the evangelion's thought interface._

_The pain that reached Shinji through the link was reflected back as a chilling cry of pain after it had traversed each and every fiber of the fourteen-year-old pilot._

_The rapid stream of agony was so powerful that many of the barriers that had hindered the flow of thoughts, sensations and emotions between man and the alleged machine until now were mercilessly torn down._

_The wish to be_ heard, _to be delivered from_ _that horrific suffering was just too strong for Shinji to care that the usually so tightly shut barriers of his being were ripped open, revealing his innermost to the monstrous human creation._

_He was just that desperate, his wish for his screaming not to go unheard was just that strong._

_And his prayers were answered._

_There was a response._

_Somewhere in the depths of the vast emptiness inside the Evangelion that Shinji had filled with his fears and wishes, there was a stirring, a presence that had been scattered for a long time, floating within itself, was recognizing something that convinced the sparks of its existence to piece it back together, to awaken, to spread its arms and to call his name like a distant heartbeat, much like that of a mother must sound to her unborn child._

_And then, it all happened incredibly fast. He felt is coming over him, at first like a gentle embrace from behind, but then, like an entire torrent, flowing inside him, a vast stream of something he could only describe as "stimuli" for he couldn't tell whether it was pressure, warmth, cold, pain, arousal or just all at once._

_With eyes wide open, he felt his innermost being flooded by that faraway heartbeat that seemed to follow his own like an echo._

_Heart and heart, soul and soul in perfect unison._

_A flawless trinity of a boy that wanted to be saved, a beast that wanted to preserve itself and this brilliant surge of pleasant warmth, those arms he was unconditionally welcomed into, a harmonious concord that had melted into one single will that nothing could any longer oppose._

_From this point onwards, he could no longer say which actions were his own, which ones were Unit One's and which had come from_ her.

_He honestly couldn't tell the difference anymore._

_The light returned to the violet beast's eyes._

_Now liberated from the limitations of its incomplete existence, the unified entity was quick to dispose of the pathetic restraints holding its jaws together, unleashing a spine-chilling, inhuman scream that lay somewhere between the roar of a beast and the sound of an engine powering up._

_And that was just the beginning._

_The flowing, organic movement which the creature used to catapult itself 50 meters through the air bore little resemblance to the younger Ikari's ill-fated attempts at walking._

_Fueled by the most ancient of instincts, the drive to preserve oneself and one's progeny, the entity was a being of brute force: Violently throwing the enemy to the ground with the sheer force of its impact, the howling predator attacked immediately, hitting and pulling on the overpowered angel's mask-like face, finding more than enough time to disfigure it, break it and even pull some bits off in the time that it took for the angel to recover from what bore striking resemblance to a state of shock and throw the attacker away with its powerful arms._

_All the same, the manmade abomination landed on its feet like a cunning feline, and immediately turned back to its victim, charging it like a berserker, barred of traits that would have allowed it restraint or hesitation._

_"We have won." Fuyutsuki commented in the command center._

_And indeed, the violet colossus didn't leave the overwhelmed angel the chance to erect is massive green upper body._

_The son of Adam, however, didn't give up so easily: Exuding an avian cry of exertion, he managed to twist himself back forward, and even if he was forced to support himself with his arms at first, his efforts were enough: enough to pull up the wall of his self between himself and his enemy to ward it off._

_The unified entity ran into a wall._

_With something that could very well be labeled as determination, the heavenly messenger's glowing red eyes stared through its wall, down at the human creation._

_But the horned giant was far from defeated._

_Like a muscular sailor pulling up his sleeves for a brawl to expose his tattoos, the unified being simply decided that it would need both its hands to deal with this particular enemy._

_With almost sickening ease, the being regenerated its arm and grunted demonstratively into the angel's direction, who realized, to his utmost shock, that this perversion which the lilim had crafted from the desecrated body of their own ancient mother, having defiled it further by forcing it into this misshapen form that resembled both their own, pathetic form and that of the angel's own honored father, (that alone was more than enough to the creation of this monster wrong and blasphemous in the angel's eyes) was actually capable of projecting the wall of its self, just like one of his own kind!_

_After one or two lillim had sacrificed their souls to feed the hollow aberration, that is._

_And this living sin, this twisted mockery of all creation, was actually able to grab Sachiel's wall and tear it apart without much of an effort._

_It would come. It didn't fail to announce this intention with another animalistic war cry._

_Sachiel wasted no time and sent a preemptive strike consisting of a laser beam from his eyes towards the enemy, a mighty, destructive discharge whose cross-shaped fire pulled down any bizarre creations of lilim origin that crossed its path._

_Buildings and other results of the fruit of knowledge weren't something that he could assign a meaning and a purpose; The concept of shelter was alien to a creature that was gifted with unlimited energy by the fruit of life, something abstract that Sachiel, who had mostly acted as an attacker and a seeker, hadn't really concerned himself with._

_His goals were to find Adam and destroy this perversion…_

_But it was all for naught._

_His energy beam hadn't as much as scratched the gigantic cyborg._

_Unfazed, it grabbed one of the angel's hands after the other, as if it were picking up some garbage, and broke them apart like wooden sticks._

_It made sure to squeeze every last drop of blood out of them, perhaps as a revenge for the broken arm earlier._

_EVA 01 didn't leave the angel any respite; the cracking of his arms was directly followed by a devastating kick that sent the messenger skidding across the city's rough ground until the collision with a particularly tall skyscraper brought it to a halt._

_But Unit One knew no mercy: The biomechanical construct charged the enemy of the world like a madman with an axe, making him and the few buildings behind him slide several blocks just with the sheer impact force of jumping on him with its whole body._

_The helpless, battered angel's torment, however, was far from over: Unswerving, EVA 01 rose anew. Being itself a celestial being or a least closely related to them, Unit One instinctively recognized the meaning of the red sphere in the angel's center._

_It was a partially transparent, crystalline structure with an uncertain glow coming from its inside, the part of the angel's body that, comparable to and yet very different from a human brain served as the vessel of the soul._

_In other words, it was the part of the body whose integrity had to be violated to end the angel's life. A fragile being such as a human would die if one were to stop their brain's supply of oxygen by otherwise damaging the rest of their body, but a being carrying the fruit of life was independent of things such as food or oxygen, only more "direct" measures would suffice to destroy the core. Such as brute force._

_Two merciless punches hit the angel's crystalline heart, shifting it within the already damaged body, until the Evangelion decided that it was no use and resolved to put one of the ribs that were conveniently sticking out of Sachiel's body to an unorthodox use._

_The EVA pulled at both sides of the EVA's ribcage, partially dislocating the core from its place within the angel's green, rubber-like flesh by tearing part of it free._

_Causing further bleeding, it managed to rip out one of his ribs, using it to stab at the very core it was once supposed to protect, screaming in mad bloodlust._

_The very first blow yielded cracks, and Unit One kept going at it._

_In his desperation, Sachiel gathered the strength to raise its half-crumbled head, but it was already too late. The human creation had already taken the upper hand, and the messenger knew that this injury to its core was a wound he would never recover from._

_But if reaching his father was impossible, then he could at least serve him by blowing this horrifying perversion off the face of his planet._

_The angel wrapped his limbs around the enemy and turned himself inside-out, forming a firm, dark sphere around the Evangelion's upper body._

_Sachiel's voice that was more of an extension of its still overwhelming, alien presence that invited resonance was still as steely as it had been in the beginning, perhaps a last gesture of defiance and pride._

_….YOU…..COME…WITH…..ME…_

_And then, he was no longer able to hold the barriers of his self and its body swelled until it burst into fireworks of blood, dwarfed by a huge, cross-shaped explosion that followed the core's ultimate destruction which leveled a sizeable portion of the city and catapulted particles of the angel's liquefied corpse high into the atmosphere where they refracted the starlight to form the covenant's seven-colored emblem, the double rainbow, as they already began to return to the newly-formed crater as thick, viscous drops, almost like a rain of blood and gore._

_And yet, the sacrifice was for naught: As soon as the smoke began to clear, the Evangelion could be seen wading through the bloody rain, completely intact, with its green fluorescent ornaments evoking the image of a savage warrior's war paint._

Evangelion Unit 01 had been victorious.

_The giant's steps didn't come to a stop before it had reached the still cooling, but nonetheless standing parts of the city, just outside the crater, its lone eye still glowing like a beacon._

_It was only now that it would have made any sense to speak of a separate, independently acting being with the designation "Ikari Shinji" with the body inside the entry plug as his borders, regarding the interface through his own eyes._

_He still sat there with his eyes wide open, still feeling those foreign emotions "hanging" inside him, still mixing with his own in a way that made it hard to tell them apart as he was still deeply connected to the system._

_But what he was_ also _connected to once again was, at least judging by the technicians' reports he was now hearing, NERV headquarters._

_This mind-numbing experience, however, had left whatever parts of him were responsible for processing information threadbare, so that the flush of words coming from the intercom barely even reached his consciousness._

_The knowledge about the events that just transpired was still lingering in his mind, like any extraordinary memory would, but he couldn't put it into words._

_It was penned in a language of simple feelings and sensations that a more or less rational consciousness could hardly access, in a way resembling recollections of one's early childhood._

_And yet, that information still managed to "occupy" him somehow, blocking his thoughts._

_The next stimulus to truly reach him and wake him from his dream-like in-between-state was the loud noise of an armor plate crashing into the ground._

_Even if he tentatively glanced down, half dazed and half bashful, he did it out of some sort of habit, for he didn't need to do so in order to tell that it was the half of EVA 01's head armor that had been previously thoroughly demolished by the now deceased angel. To him, it felt like it was his very own cheek the metal had slid off from._

_But… if that metal sliding off had felt like… some sort of helmet being removed, then… just what was beneath?_

_Next to him was a building with a reflective glass façade, and even though it was night, the explosion's afterglow provided more than enough light for him to see… to he could technically take a look._

_Yet somehow, he felt uneasy, almost as if he_ shouldn't _look._

_Still… a boy has got to be allowed to glance at the cool technologic insides of his own combat robot, shouldn't he?_

_So he turned his head to get a good view of his robot…_

_Except… it wasn't a robot._

_What he saw was, in spite of all the cybernetic accessories squeezing it into place, deformed FLESH, a grotesquely warped face with nostrils and an ugly hole where its eye should be._

_Speechless at first, he then gave off a soft sound of mortification staring at the brownish, mangled flesh of Evangelion Unit One… until it began to bestir itself._

_It was the eye._

_The EYE._

_Oh God, the **EYE**._

_Fresh meat bubbled from the black hole in the EVAs face, swiftly straightening itself out, only to slit open again to reveal new, pink flesh from which a green eye that was covered will all too little skin sprung, immediately turningin what appeared to be his direction._

_Shinji stared._

_Unit One stared back._

_He saw Unit One through its own eyes, and its eyes moved so that their reflection would look like it was looking at him…and in spite of all physical laws, barriers and plates of armor, it_ saw _him…_

_And he saw that._

_He saw himself through the eyes of the beast, through its thoughts and perceptions…_

_All things considered, what he'd been forced to witness was just so grotesque that he couldn't think of any suitable reaction other than to keep screaming until his throat failed to produce any more sound._

Deeply disturbed, Shinji stared at the ceiling with his eyes wide open, incapable of handling the memories' sudden return.

Shaken to the core, he rolled onto his side and curled into a ball, his stare now directed at the wall rather than the ceiling.

In the following half hour, he moved exactly once, to cover himself with a blanket.

Even when someone knocked on the door, he failed to react, in the same way that a computer with a blue screen would ignore any of its user's attempt to move the mouse around or try out any repertoire of key combinations.

"Shinji-kun…? May I come in?" Misato asked, her voice serious and heavy, purged of the almost hyperactive cheerfulness she had worn for the rest of the day.

He only noticed that she eventually entered on her own accord when no reply came because of the light that fell in from the hallway through the door she had opened.

"I have… forgotten to tell you something…" she began, honest and forthright.

Right now, it wouldn't have been an overstatement to say that he was frankly incapable of turning around to face her, but the tone of her voice practically carried a warm smile with it.

He hadn't thought that she could sound like this, neither the 'cool' head of the operations department nor the sloppy beer appreciator.

She sounded so… honest and… caring and warm…

Her voice… touched something inside of him, her words gave him something that he had forgotten about a long time ago, something he'd nonetheless missed bitterly all along.

It might have been attention or affection, perhaps of the maternal kind, or just simple old love, in any case, Shinji hadn't received it for so long that he could no longer as much as name it.

All he could do was to keep listening to Misato's melodious sentences:

"You did a very praiseworthy thing yesterday.

You were very brave… and everyone here is deeply in your debt…

You have all the right to be proud of yourself.

Sweet Dreams, Shinji-kun."

Yes, he thought that he'd once known this feeling, a long, long time ago… Maybe… maybe he should just… give this place a try, maybe… something would really change if he just… gave all of this a go…

_"Hang in there."_

Yes, maybe.

He could still feel the chill that had been left by the horrors he'd witnessed yesterday deep within his bones, and those terrifying experiences alone should have been enough of a reason for him to leave this strange, frightening place behind him as quickly as possible, to get away from all those new people that he felt so insecure around.

But what Misato had just said had made him feel… supported, if only just a little.

She was still a complete stranger, but she seemed to… know the way.

He… he didn't know what to think of her yet.

Maybe he was just imagining things, or maybe she was just trying to deceive him because of her job…

Or maybe, that little bit of support was all he'd been needing all this time…

Was it genuine emotions, foolish illusions or overblown hopes that left him behind with this feeling of ambivalence?

What gave him that impression that he wasn't sure if he wanted to leave this place or not?

What was it that left him full of this emptiness that pulled at the torn remains of his inner universe?

As it was, he was here, and in this strange, unreal place… Misato was the closest to a "safe" person he could cling to, the only real human in this city, the only one to offer him as much as a spark of warmth…

In any case, he would stay here… at least, for the time being.

* * *

At that time, Shinji couldn't have known yet that he wasn't the only one who had made himself at home that evening.

If throwing a flat into total disarray, knocking over the couch, ripping the curtains apart, plundering the fridge like an animal, leaving its contents scattered at over the place with bite marks on them, leaving the door open and reducing the previous owners to a bloody pile in a corner deserved that label, that is. It certainly wasn't everyone's ideal vision of how to move into a new home.

The corpus delicti, a huge kitchen knife, was still stuck in a woman's corpse when the perpetrator emerged from the shower, stark naked.

Her long, blue hair was still damp and as such, still partially clinging to her impossible body.

At first, one may have thought that she was on her way to one of the bedrooms, but then, her steps stopped abruptly before the previous owners' corpses as she turned towards them.

Eying them with a scrutinizing glance, the escaped test subject extended her arm towards them, and if to answer her, a motion seemed to pass through the corpses, a sudden jolt as if they had somehow been activated.

The dismembered bodies twitched a little before they practically exploded, soiling the floor that had already been sullied with their blood with the reddish-orange liquid their murderer's might had reduced them to.

But the entity skeptically narrowed her eyes; Only the heads and torsos had properly exploded, and they had still left something of a crust, with the limbs appearing virtually untouched.

"This will have to improve… significantly."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) I'm not comfortable referring to sentient beings such as the Angels as "it", (After all, a number of them displays curiosity or attempt communication and one even goes as far as romancing the main character) but I figured that I sort of had to do so as long as I was writing from the perspective of the human characters. The pronoun flip is supposed to coincide with a flip in perspective, an interesting narrative technique I wanted to try out after seeing it in Naruto (Kyuubi vs. Pein) and Bleach (Ulquiorra vs. Tranformed!Ichigo) of all places, a situation where the party you were initially supposed to root for becomes something so inhuman that it's the antagonist, (usually the sort of antagonist that is ruthless but not monstrous /can still be reasoned with), who makes a better PoV character and thus gets the thought bubbles… of course here, where the audience knows the outcome, you don't get that effect that the reader wonders whom they actually want to win, but the point I wanted to get across is that between Sachiel and a berserking EVA 01, Sachiel is the least terrifying of the two. As for which pronouns I'll use with the remaining Angels, should the need arise, I freely admit that I am guessing. Of course, "it" isn't that accurate for Unit One, either, but again, perspective, neither Sachiel nor our poor traumatized Shin-chan know that (yet.)
> 
> (2) Yes, I personally support the theory that the pilot is, at least partially involved in a Berserk, for various reasons that I'll detail if you want me to. Everyone puts their own interpretations into their FFs, never stopped me from reading any.
> 
> (3) As for the much debated subject of Adam as a mother/father, I'm going with that Anno interview in "Shinzo/parano" where he talks of all the oedipal constructs within the series and names Adam as a paternal figure in the background.
> 
> (4) This Chapter also saw the first mentions of my OCs Mitsurugi and Asahina. Don't worry; they're intended as minor characters, so feel free to tell me if they ever get annoying. I introduced them to explore certain themes and fill some blank spots we know some unseen NERV and/or SEELE personel must've filled, and to bring about certain situations with the main Characters… Mitsurugi, in particular (who also has a son who will be playing a role of his own), is intended as a foil/contrast for Gendo, which means he has some virtues Gendo lacks… and, as it will turn out much later, he lacks some of Gendo's virtues.
> 
> (5) This is about the average chapter size, I think.
> 
> (6) If neither of this has turned you off, you might look forward to Chapter 05: [Judgement]


	8. 07: [Judgment]

_If you wouldn't mind, I would like it blew_

_And If you wouldn't mind, I would like it loose_

_And If you wouldn't care, I would like to leave_

_And If you wouldn't mind, I would like to breathe_

_Is there another reason for your stain?_

_Could you believe who we knew was stress and strain?_

_Here is another word that rhymes with shame_

_You could do anything_

_-Nirvana, 'Blew'_

* * *

**Excerpt from a composition by highschool student Suzuhara Touji:**

"My little sister was injured in the incident. She's only in second grade! And the worst is, it wasn't even the enemy that caused her injuries, it was that crazy purple robot that was supposed to be on _our_ side! I can't believe this ridiculous story any more than I can forgive it!

If I ever meet any of those useless _fuckwads_ who built the robot, I swear I'm gonna make them feel my anger and my sister's pain!"

* * *

It all began when he moved in.

In the first nights after his arrival at the Katsuragi residence, Shinji's dreams had been more vibrant than ever before; His time of rest had been filled with wild, intense visions which, at times, had seemed much more real than the fast, ridiculous mind-numbing moments that he called his waking hours and trudged through like a sleepwalker, nothing more than a small, unimportant detail in background of a larger stage setting, the kind that could be left out without anybody noticing.

He supposed that it made sense – His teacher had once told him that dreams were a byproduct of the subconscious processing the events of the day, and frankly, the most recent happenings had left Shinji with _a lot_ to process, prompting his brain to produce an according variety of ejecta:

There were gruesome nightmares filled with angels, evangelions and excruciating pain; Distorted scraps of his early childhood that managed to terrify him to no end when he was asleep, but refused to make any sort of sense when he wasn't, the sort of dreams which were to be expected of an at least physically healthy 14-year-old, mostly involving a certain sparsely dressed enthusiastic beer-consumer whose assets he'd already been in, uh…. contact with a couple of times as the starring role, and, most likely the worst, those dreams that were filled to the brim with his father's dark, broad-shouldered silhouette, his stone face and the reflective surface of his glasses.

Over and over again, this girl, this Ayanami Rei or whatever she was called would turn up in those dreams, in all sorts of different contexts and places, like his mind was an old, derelict mansion or castle and she was the ghost haunting it.

And then, there was _that_ dream.

A certain, very specific dream that kept returning, always leaving him with the feeling of having it seen countless times, kept dancing through his consciousness, even as all the other dreams receded to an almost normal level within the first two weeks or so.

Even when he had it for the first time – that is, the first time he could remember – there had been this uncomfortable sense of familiarity.

The dreams weren't always identical, but always followed a similar pattern and never came without that strong sense of déjà-vu.

At first, there was the distant sound of ocean surf as it was usually heard on a beach.

Sometimes, this was all there was, an endless shoreline stretching through an endless white expanse like it belonged to some minimalistic dawning, just waves meeting nonexistent land for half an eternity until he finally woke up.

But from time to time, there would be more, like a pungent stench in the air or the feel of the ground beneath his body, allowing him to discern that he wasn't just seeing this scenery from some kind of bird's eye view like he was watching a movie, but actually physically involved.

He was wearing his usual school uniform, the black pants, the tightly-strapped belt, the white shirt that was partially stuffed into the afore mentioned pants, his ugly, white trainers and the blue undershirt – and for some reason, each and every of those articles of clothing was completely drenched in some warm liquid which spread more of that scent that seemed to dominate this entire setting… It was almost… like blood.

Often, this would be the part where he woke up, but when he didn't, this was usually when his dream-self began to stir and open his eyes.

Above him was the infinite, jet-black canopy with a gargantuan red streak stretching across. It seemed to be in the process of dispersing, like a drop of paint sprayed into a glass of water.

Shinji turned his head just a little; before him lay the most surreal of sights: Humongous, grey, cross-shaped monoliths were sticking out of the landscape without any particular pattern to them, surrounded by the dented, battered remains of buildings and metal structures; the last scraps of civilization.

Even the very ground and the few clouds that could be glimpsed appeared to be burnt and, perhaps the single most bizarre thing… wasn't that a woman's forearm on the horizon?

Shinji sat up, taking more of his blasted surroundings into his field of vision.

He didn't even know what to think.

It was as if he'd been thrown into one of Dali's paintings while he had been asleep.

The only thing he recognized was the crimson, stinking ocean, but that did nothing to detract from the desolation of this scenery.

Shinji kept looking around, but the one and only living thing in close proximity appeared to be himself.

Hesitantly, he rose to his feet, inhaling the suffocating stench of his surroundings.

He was now standing on his own two legs, but how did that even help him in a place like this?

There was nothing for him to walk towards, no place that could bring him any sort of advantage if he should manage to reach it.

It occurred to him to search for someone, but given the desolation out here, he might as well save himself the effort, as it was very likely to go to waste, Shinji was still unable to spot anything living and neither did he mistake himself for someone with the capacity to seek it out.

He didn't even really know _who_ to search for, anyways, maybe his father?

Yeah sure, as if the ever busy commander of Nerv had any reason to be in a place like this… it's not like he was going to come looking for his son.

He didn't think that there was a single person in this world who viewed him as important enough for him or her to enter this lifeless wasteland just to search for him.

And even _if_ his father were here, would he really do much but go about his way without even turning to check whether his son was following him or not?

How would that really be different from being all alone? Wasn't it pretty much the same, except without the addition of having to constantly feel his father's rejection?

No, it was probably for the better that his father wasn't here.

Being alone was better.

And still, he could not help but task himself the same questions all over again as he let himself sink back into the sand in resignation:

What in the world could he possibly have done to end up in such an empty, desolate, horrible place?

Why wasn't anyone… with him?

And whenever Shinji awoke from this particular dream, some part of his existence would be deeply convinced that he had witnessed this particular scene thousands of times, over and over again. But not enough with that, even the ceiling above him which he'd only just gotten used to would appear oddly familiar after finishing the dream, as if he'd spent sheer eternities staring at it.

His room in Misato's apartment, Misato's voice intruding from some other corner of the house, it all seemed so… _not_ wrong to him, he was almost tempted to say that there was another voice missing.

But he would always dismiss those addle impressions as his imagination, possibly amplified by the aftereffects of the latest synch tests, and he never mentioned it to anyone, as they would always subside within moments of his awakening.

Déjà vu was a fairly common phenomenon, after all.

* * *

"So, did you get the latest surveillance reports on the Third Child?" Dr. Akagi asked her colleague from the operations division.

The conversation came to brief halt as the ski-lift-like construction which was currently transporting the two women two a section of their base that currently consisted of little more than frameworks produced something of a screeching sound.

It was only when the contraption had quieted down again that Misato replied:

"Yes, I did."

"Let me guess: They're lying somewhere beneath your mountains of junk, still unread."

"Very funny."

"So it's true?"

"Of course not! At least not exactly… I _did_ skim through them, but I don't think reading them properly is even necessary. Shinji-kun hardly spends any time outside his room, anyway…. And in any case, I don't think his private life is really any of our business… Maybe we should keep out of it as much as we can…"

"You're his _guardian_ and ensuring his operational readiness is part of your job. Wasn't this exactly how you justified this to the commander?"

"Yeah, I know but somehow I… imagined this would be easier. I can't really seem to get through to him…"

"So much for "I can totally handle the boy."…"

"I kind of thought that he …just needs a hug… - Not a literal one, of course, before you get that kind of thoughts again…"

"I wasn't getting _any_ sort of thoughts before _you_ made that remark. " the head of the science department replied poisedly.

Misato sighed. "In any case, I thought he was simply lonely and that a little bit attention and company would fix him, but it seems like it's not that simple at all…"

"How's school?" the scientist asked. "Has he gotten used to his new classmates yet?"

"Well, he says that there's no problem so far, but personally, I'm not really convinced… I don't think he got any calls yet."

"Calls?" Dr. Akagi raised an eyebrow.

"For obvious reasons, I got him a cellphone when he first moved in, but so far, I haven't seen him using it, and I haven't heard anyone calling, either. I'm afraid that he might not have any friends at all… and he won't even talk about it…"

"If you ask me, I don't think any of this is your fault… Shinji-kun just doesn't seem the type to forge new bonds easily… have you ever heard of the hedgehogs's dilemma?"

"Hedgehogs? Those thorny ones?"

"Well, if two hedgehogs have the desire to get close to each other, they get something of a problem. The closer they come together, the more they'll hurt each other with their thorns…

I think that Shinji-kun is this introverted because he's simply afraid of being hurt…"

"Yeah but… someday he's going to have to understand that one can only learn how to keep the proper distance by opening oneself up from time to time, even if that involves risking to be hurt… it's just another part of growing up…

Oh, and Ritsuko?"

"Yes?"

"Do you have any clue if we're going to get the money to properly renovate the b-wing anytime soon?"

The fake blonde took another drag on her cigarette, amused about the sudden turning away from the philosophic topics.

"Well, right now, all the money's being put into the maintenance and armament of the EVAs. Everything else will have to wait."

"Tell that to my freezing butt…"

* * *

By now, the iridescent flicker of colors of the activation sequence failed to yield as much as a wink from Shinji.

For the last weeks, he had been seeing them almost every other day.

They had left him to rest on the day after the battle, and Misato had been able to enforce that he'd be left alone on the next day after as well, on the grounds that it was of utmost importance to make sure that his nervous system had fully recovered, given that he was currently the only available pilot.

The same reason, however, was used to escort him back to headquarters on the very next day afterwards – As they were currently forced to rely on him, it was imperative to make sure that he was actually reliable, that is, to begin his training.

And since his first attempt to move the Eva had ended with him inelegantly falling flat on his face, Misato hadn't disagreed.

Before he knew, he found himself permanently squeezed into the role of EVA 01's designated pilot without anyone really asking him.

Admittedly, it wasn't as if had really done much protesting against it, but even if he _had_ complained, what did the odds of anyone seriously giving a damn about it really look like?

In addition to that, there _was_ that little, naïve part of him that hoped that his staying here would actually make a difference and wished to somehow participate in the lives of both Misato and his father.

Not that he would ever dare to as much as _think_ those foolish hopes out loud.

That would only damn him a feeling of bitter disappointment when he made the first of his inevitable mistakes.

In any case, his training had begun on the third day of his stay in Tokyo-3, even if the word "training" was little more than the official designation at first – initially, his trips to Nerv headquarters had mostly numerous physical examinations and tests waiting for him.

Those hadn't bothered him that much; he was even allowed to keep listening to his music half the time.

It was only later that they began connecting him to the Eva on a regular basis, be it directly or indirectly through test chambers or simulation bodies.

At first, the primary purpose of those exercises was to get him used to synching with the violet titan and increase his performance to an usable level, though Dr. Akagi claimed that they might as well have skipped that part of the test phase in his case.

Plug Depht, Harmonix, Synchronization ratio… To be honest, Shinji couldn't even begin to make sense of all those scientific terms, and as long as they didn't give anyone a reason to complain or send him away, he couldn't care less what they meant.

What he _did_ notice, though, was the connection with Unit 01 no longer overwhelmed him the way it had the first time, and that he'd no longer felt any notable aftereffects after the third or fourth try at synchronization.

For whatever that was worth.

Even a kid like him could tell that the level of strain that just sitting inside that thing put on him couldn't even be compared to what actually fighting in it or, heaven forbid, having it go berserk with him inside once again, would do to him.

Curiously, the berserk itself had been good luck within bad luck for Nerv's scientists – as it seemed, they hadn't known much more about the most effective methods to send an angel straight to nirvana than Shinji did.

On the other hand, just one battle proved enough for Dr. Akagi and her co-workers to collect sufficient data to present him with detailed battle simulations, which, of course, had been placed right after the acclimatization phase in Shinji's training schedule.

Incidentally, Shinji had also come to find out why he'd been asked for his measurements and favorite color: Apparently, there was a special uniform or duty apparel for Eva pilots, which was, called a 'plug suit', in keeping with naming of those strange cockpit capsules.

For example, that strange, form-fitting rubber costume which that Ayanami girl had been wearing on the day of his arrival had been one of these plug suits, if, naturally, one conceived for female pilots. His own looked somewhat differently.

Those contraptions on the front were a bit more pronounced, rather than a zero, there was a big one on the back and the color scheme was clearly divided in two. Much like Rei's suit, his has some black elements on the sides, but while the rest of hers was almost entirely solid white, his was dark blue from the waist down, while the upper part was kept in the same very light blue as his interface headset, and, much like Rei's, clung closely to his skin once he'd properly put it on.

His first thoughts were that he might as well have been told to publicly walk around in nothing but socks and underwear, but once he'd gotten over his initial disconcertedness, he had to admit that it was a pretty comfortable piece of clothing, almost like a second skin – which of course wasn't the only reason why that outfit had been recommended to him.

At first there were, of course, the practical aspects of it – The entry plug would usually be filled with LCL, and who'd really like to wash the sticky substance out of their clothes every other day, not to speak of the multiple nooks and crannies of their own body?

In addition to that, those plug suits were stuffed to the brim with all kinds of life support functionalities to complement those of the EVA itself, including thermic isolation, a defibrillator and numerous electrodes to measure various bodily functions – the very thought that he might actually _need_ these anytime soon was enough to make his blood run cold.

Lastly, the plug suit also helped to enhance synchronization by minimizing outside interferences and making sure that every bit of his skin was sensing the same texture, making it easier to concentrate on the sensations coming from the EVA. There were extra interface connections spread throughout it, too.

All in all, it was a fairly useful multipurpose outfit, but then again, Shinji was fine with just about anything that created a physical barrier between him and his surroundings.

"Hello, Shinji-kun. How are you today?" Ritsuko asked.

There was already a certain routine to it.

"I'm fine…" he replied, silently passively surrendering himself to the procedures just like he'd done the last day and on the day before that, too, his eyes downcast.

"I've gotten used to it…" That was the truth, at least as far as the experiments went – as much as it was actually _possible_ to get used to something like this.

"All right. Have you memorized the locations of power cables and spare weapons?"

"Yes." He confirmed, almost mechanically.

"Okay… We'll be doing some more practice in induction mode, just like yesterday. Today, we're going to simulate the case of a battle with a time limit. As you know, the EVA is normally supplied with energy through the umbilical cable. If the cable should get cut, you'll still have the batteries, but those will only last a minute on maximum performance, and five minutes at most. In such a situation, you'll be forced to defeat the enemy as quickly as possible."

By pressing some keys, Dr. Akagi made a virtual image of both his Eva and a simulated Angel, molded after the one he fought some weeks ago, materialize before Shinji's eyes.

"Every angel possesses a so called core. Destroying it is the only reliable way to destroy them. So, aim for the center of the target and pull the trigger."

"Aim for the center of the target… and pull the trigger…" Shinji repeated, pointing the virtual rifle at the enemy.

His face appeared completely impassive, apathetic even, but the margin by which he missed his target betrayed his nervousness.

Nobody could tell him just how soon he might be facing an _actual_ monster in a fight to the death….

"Concentrate." Dr. Akagi reprimanded.

Shinji fired another shot – and hit.

The simulated angel exploded.

"Very well. You're doing fine." Ritsuko commented, not taking her ever-watchful eyes of her screens.

Separated from them by a thick glass wall, the fourteen-year-old continued his practice inside the simulation body, a huge construct bizarrely resembling a spitfire pilot's helmet, with bits and pieces of organic matter occasionally peeking through the metal.

"I'm surprised that Shinji-kun agreed so easily to continue after all he's been through in the first battle…" Lt Ibuki commented, sitting in front of a terminal evaluating the data, npot far from her superior.

"Looks like he always does exactly as he's told…" Dr. Akagi explained, her voice devoid of the worry that might have been appropriate. "I guess that's also a way to cope with life."

There was something about that very idea that rubbed Misato, who was standing in the back of the room with her arms crossed, in a _very_ wrong way. There it was again, that passivity, that boy's all-too transparent pretense of indifference.

She'd had her own share of problems and ordeals, too, and was _she_ perhaps painting herself in the role of the victim for the convenience of shifting all the blame to others?

No, it was probably that same similarity to her own situation, to what she'd almost become, to what she dearly hoped she hadn't become which enraged her so much.

* * *

Aside from strange dreams of apocalyptic landscapes and battle training in ginormous biomechanical mechas, there was yet another thing that Shinji had gotten used to by now: His new school.

"Getting used to it", however, didn't mean much more than that he had no more trouble finding the correct rooms and had managed to memorize the names of the teachers.

While he had been tutored privately up until now, that was mostly because his father had lots of money and no intention to bother with him – it wasn't like he really required individual attention, he didn't have any exceptional talents, debilitating learning disabilities or any other characteristics that would've merited diligent attention or made him unsuited for a normal public school.

Not that the school in question was _completely_ ordinary – Allegedly, it had been built specifically for the children of Nerv employees and was thus more or less owned by the organization, which had the advantage that it was close to an entrance to the geofront in case of emergency and that the money for school books, uniforms and other materials would be reimbursed to him. It also made surveillance easier, whatever Dr. Akagi had meant by that.

Shinji himself didn't particularly care.

He didn't really bother with school, after all, it wasn't like anyone would praise him for earning good grades.

As long as they weren't _too_ bad, there would be no scolding, and as long as there was no scolding, Shinji was fine with the state of affairs.

He just went there, sat down, kept quiet, did what the teachers told him to do and went back home.

Usually, this was all there ever was.

When he rose from his sleep and put on his clothes this morning, he certainly hadn't expected any significant deviations from that routine, and that suited him just fine.

He hoped that nothing would happen, that he would be spared of new opportunities to screw things up.

Still, that little voice that kept bugging him with the possibility that things just _might_ turn out the right way for once refused to shut up, and he was sick and tired of hearing it.

Yes, good outcomes were possible, but that didn't mean they _had_ to happen, and much less to him.

But that was old news; it was okay, he already knew about that.

After all, what had he really done to deserve any luck? All he wanted was to be left in peace, he was perfectly content with that.

Silently, Shinji stuffed his books into his school bag, his thoughts busy with convincing himself that he wasn't disappointed to be confronted with nothing but dreary everyday life after he'd come all the way here, after he'd allowed himself to feel something like hope for once in his life.

Sighing, he put on his backpack and silently moved to the kitchen to make himself something to eat, stopping by at Misato's door along the way, again, without any high hopes; It hadn't taken him too long to notice that Katsuragi Misato was …not a morning person, especially if she'd been on the night shift the day before.

After he'd quietly prepared himself some lunch, he left the apartment, carrying a garbage bag which he'd planned to dispose of on the way.

It was probably enough to state that the layers of trash in the Katsuragi household had melted down at an exponential rate.

The housekeeping work gave Shinji the feeling that he was at least _a little_ usefull around here, even if he would have preferred it if Misato weren't already taking it for granted.

In any case, once the garbage was taken care of, he clapped the dust from his hands, plugged in his headphones and headed for the school building.

He hardly took note of his surroundings anymore; He'd gotten used to all the flashy technology and everything else he could possibly have glimpsed here would probably do little to improve his mood.

Therefore, he chose to concentrate on his music and the patch of ground directly in front of his feet.

The closer he came to the school, the more students walking the same path as him could be seen – the uniform usually gave them away.

Regardless, Shinji kept a safe distance from them, not daring to talk to them or to even graze their fields of vision, lest it occur to them to talk to _him_ –

He would surely be end up being a nuisance or say something wrong, and ultimately get shouted at one way or another…

Crossing the doorstep of the school building, Shinji still had his headphones plugged into his ears, and his gaze was still lowered; He only saw the faucets and shoe cupboards, the walls and floors of the building, or the many legs of his fellow students that filled the corridors before him, eventually thinning out as they distributed themselves amongst the classrooms.

When he finally reached his own, little notice was taken; The other students were all caught up in their own little worlds, mostly minding their own business: While some preferred to use the time before the teacher's arrival for a nice nap, the girls were mostly assembled in groups of three or four, having lively chats about the big topics of the day and here and there, in the second-to- last row, you'd even find one of them rereading her notes on the last lesson, but she appeared to be an unique case – the only thing anyone in the rest of the class bothered to read were various mangas.

In the back of the classroom, some boy was trying to impress his classmates by using a large ruler that was probably intended for use on the blackboard as an air guitar, and that alone should have been enough to draw all attention away from a silent, nondescript boy walking over to his desk.

He couldn't understand what they were speaking of, but they all seemed relaxed and, save for very few exceptions, were all standing together in small groups.

The only person who seemed to be just as alone as he was sat amongst numerous unused tables that were no longer a rarity in this room, right next to the window, perpetually gazing through it, turned away from the noise and activity in the remainder of the classroom.

It was the injured girl from the cage.

The stranger who didn't cease to fascinate him.

Ayanami Rei.

It had only been two days since she first stopped going to school again and even now that she had been discharged from the hospital, she still looked rather worse for the wear.

She was still wearing bandages around her head and a not-quite-so-thick-anymore cast around her arm, and her eye was still hidden beneath.

That extremely unhealthy-looking skin tone had stayed, too – Shinji had still not quite come to terms with the thought that this was, in fact, her normal skin color.

She still appeared so very, very weak and fragile, compelling Shinji to talk to her or at least be there for her in some shape or form… After all, he knew very well what it felt like to be all alone when everybody else was happily interacting, and to see that poor, injured girl sitting there, all lonesome and abandoned like a lost child, seemed just plain _wrong_ to him.

But what he knew even better was that he could never possibly work up the courage to approach her.

And so, he just sat down, tearing his glance from her in resignation.

* * *

A few rows of seats further back, a boy with longish, light-brown hair was occupied with something completely different.

While he certainly wasn't the only one in this room who had brought a little something to entertain himself, most would probably have regarded bringing a whole _camcorder_ as a bit of overkill there – especially since it was being used to film little plastic warplane while their owner enthusiastically supplied the sound effects himself.

He was wearing the same school uniform as Shinji, except that he had a red undershirt beneath it and didn't seem to have bothered to stuff his shirt into his trousers.

Aside from his glasses, his face was also adorned with a fair amount of freckles, a small, knobby nose and two huge, hazel eyes – that last bit, however, was not exactly apparent at the moment as he had one eye squeezed shut and the other looking straight into his camcorder.

Alas, he was soon forced to remove his trusty electronic friend from his face when the blurred form of a girl's uniform appeared behind his plastic plane.

The uniform in question consisted of a short blue dress whose lower half resembled a pleated skirt, and some sort of white blouse that was supposed to be decorated with a red ribbon at the collar, but currently couldn't be seen in its entirety because its owner was holding a folder that was in turn blocking part of it from view.

They both belonged to a freckled girl of average build whose brown hair was molded into two pigtails by a pair of hair ties augmented with pearl-like purple ornaments.

Her dark eyes were shooting the boy with the camcorder a scolding look.

"What's the matter, class rep?" he asked, still oblivious of what he could have done to draw the ire of the resident figure of authority.

"…did you take care of yesterday's printouts?"

The camera boy's subsequent 'Ehh…?' made him sound very much like a four-year-old caught with his hand in the cookie box.

"Er, the thing is…" he began, making one last attempt to distract the girl long enough for him to bury the positively un-delivered documents under his desk between his other possessions. "…no matter how often I tried, no one would open the door. Looks like there wasn't anyone at Touji's place."

The class representative obviously didn't buy his hasty excuse and followed his words with the mandatory lecture: "Aida-kun, you're Suzuhara's friend, aren't you? Aren't you worried at all?"

"I don't know, he may have been injured." was Aida's retort.

"What? You don't mean during that robot battle, do you?" the class representative inquired, surprised. "But they said on TV that no one was hurt!"

"And how would that be possible? You've seen the resulting crater yourself. Not only Iruma and Komatsu, no, they even had to send units from Misawa and Kyushu!

I'm pretty sure that at least ten, if not twenty people must've been hurt. There might even have been causalities…"

The conversation between the two was interrupted by the noise of the classroom's door opening to reveal a swarthy teenager around their age who was quite obviously in a very rotten mood. He wore his black hair in a short, modern style, appeared to have eschewed the school's dress code in favor of a dark blue tracksuit, and had brown eyes that, not unlike the rest of his face, clearly signalized that the foot he'd risen out of bed with today was most definitely not the correct one.

"Touji!"

"Suzuhara!"

The two were rather surprised to see the topic of their conversation standing before them of all sudden – his camcorder-toting friend had even forgotten to remove the afore mentioned device from his face as he turned his head toward his newly-arrived friend.

The greeting, however, did not seem to significantly improve the taller boy's mood, who proceeded to angrily throw his bag onto the table next to his friends, greet him with a curt "Hi!" and take a look around the rather empty classroom.

"Looks like the number of students here has been decreasing drastically!"

"Evacuations, evacuations…" the bespectacled youth explained. "Lots of people have been transferred after the whole incident. It's not much a surprise when you consider that there was a _real battle_ in the middle of the city."

"You're just about the only one who's happy about that…"

"Yeah, probably. And then there's that serial killer, too…"

"Don't tell me they still haven't caught that bastard…"

"Not yet. It was only the day before yesterday that they found some more corpses in an apartment building. That guy's methods are getting crazier by the day. At first, the victims were practically chopped to bits and no one could explain how he managed to sever their heads and limbs with such clean cuts… But since a few weeks, they've also been finding victims that look like their bodies practically melted, all they find are bits and pieces of flesh in puddles of sticky goo… And the creepiest part is, it seems as if the perp _kept living in the victims' houses_ for quite a while after he'd offed them. They're pretty sure by now – showers were used and, in the first few cases, just left running, fridges were found _plundered_ as if some wild animal had rummaged through them – the last victims even had some of their clothes stolen…And on top of that comes the robot battle. _Of course_ people are fleeing the city. I've heard that another hundred left just yesterday… But that aside, what about you?

You've been absent for quite a while – Were you hurt in the battle?"

"Not me", Touji answered gruffly, revealing the reason for his frustrations: "Sakura. My little sister. She was buried under a pile of rubble. She survived, but she's been in hospital ever since, and since both my father and my grandfather work at the institute and can't really quit right now, I was the only one left – If I hadn't stayed with her, she would have been all alone…"

His voice betrayed his worry quite overtly.

"In any case, I'd really like to know what sort of _moron_ they put behind the controls of that robot so that fucking _coward_ can show his damned _face_ to me! Our _own_ robot blows up the city! What on earth was that dumbass _doing_?!"

Touji's friend interjected at this point: "…did you hear the rumor about the transferee?"

"Transferee? What transferee?"

"That one over there!" The well-informed bestacled boy subtly gestured his friend towards a silent boy who was sitting at his desk two rows away from theirs.

And truthfully, Touji really couldn't remember having seen the back of this particular head anywhere before – It looked fairly non-threatening, actually.

"He transferred to our school while you were away." The boy with the camcorder explained.

"So what? Wouldn't that make him a bit too late to be our serial killer?" Touji retorted, apparently not taking this all too seriously.

"Well that's true, but think. He arrived right after the robot battle! Don't you think that's totally suspicious?"

Before the two had any chance to finish their conversation, the door opened up again, which even Shinji didn't fail to notice, headphones or no.

It was a short, elderly man with thick dark-rimmed glasses – the teacher.

"Rise! Bow! Sit down!"

* * *

What had once begun as an ordinary, innocent math class soon took the same path south that many others had taken before it as the old teacher had again managed to somehow derail the topic to once again bore the students with yet another endless lecture about Second Impact.

If this were a history lesson, it may still have been somewhat understandable, but this old geezer never seemed to waste an excuse to begin spamming the class with more of his anecdotes, regardless of what subject he was supposed to be teaching, even if it was something like a math problem just happening to have the number '2000' as a solution.

It was inevitably followed by the same old balderdash they'd all heard a thousand times, about that one fateful meteor, the tilting of earth's axis, the following weather anomalies and wars, the state of the oceans, and so on…

Shinji had spent most of that lecture staring unhappily at the air as he had long since despaired over the math problem on his laptop's screen.

He was all the more surprised when, all of a sudden, a shining icon on said screen informed him that he had just received a message on the internal school network.

Shinji was unable to explain this. Until now, he had barely spoken to anyone here and couldn't understand how someone would possibly go through the trouble of writing him a message.

Hungering for the first bite of attention that he'd been given in a very long time, he swiftly pressed the keys to get the message displayed to him as quickly as possible.

"Is it true that you're that robot's pilot? Y/N?"

Shinji's eyes widened.

How could they possibly know that?

Exited, he took a look around the classroom – a smiling girl from in the back of the classroom waved to him. The one next to her began typing.

"It's true, isn't it? Y/N?"

Shinji wondered.

He wasn't sure if he was actually allowed to say that, but…

That was the first time that others around his age had ever shown interest in him, and if he were to say 'no' right now…

Of course, that was only because of the evangelion and not really because of _him_ , but this might just be the very best that a loser like him could possibly attain…

But was it really right to take advantage of his position like this…?

"Yes." Shinji typed, quickly pressing the 'enter' key before he'd have any time to change his mind and resist the temptation after all.

A collective "WHAT?!" echoed through the classroom, some of the girls just flat out jumped out of their chairs.

Ironically, the old teacher seemed to be the one to take the least note of the emergent ruckus, and the class representative's attempts to enthuse her peers about the concept of discipline were completely fruitless, not counting the few cries of "You're such a killjoy!" that it earned her.

Aside from Ayanami, who hadn't shown any real reaction and kept looking out of the window, hardly anyone had remained on their seats – instead, they had formed a thick knot of students centered on the quite overwhelmed EVA-pilot.

"Uhm… er…"

"Hey, how were you chosen?" one girl asked.

"Did you have to take some sort of test?"

"Weren't you afraid?"

"What does the cockpit look like?"

Shinji was mostly preoccupied with backing off slightly whenever someone came remotely close and struggled to even react to the many questions. He wasn't used to being the center of attention and simply didn't know how to handle any of this.

"Uh, I… I… I'm not sure if I'm even allowed to talk about it…" he hesitantly scrambled together.

"Does that robot have a name?"

"I-I'm not really sure, but everyone calls it 'EVA' or 'Unit One'…"

"EVA?"

Aida Kensuke, now sans camcorder, was one of the few to have remained on their seats. The foothills of the crowd almost reached his seat. Instead of participating, he adjusted his glasses in suspicion and listened from afar to the transferee's bumbling tattle – and then, he began to write down every single word.

"And what's its secret trump card?" asked a boy for a change.

"It… It's got that… knife-thing with, uh, vibrations and stuff, like… ultrasound or something…"

"This is great! He's really the pride of our school, isn't he?"

"Just how awesome _is_ this!"

By the time the school bell announced the end of the term, the teacher still hadn't finished his ramblings and was surprised to find that no one had been listening to him in a very long time.

"Rise! Bow! …C'mon, at least do it properly at the end!"

Undisturbed by teacher, school bell or class representative, Shinji's little interview went on and on.

But that wasn't to say that his classmates only held feelings of awe for the Third Child – Suzuhara Touji, in particular, appeared significantly less than pleased…

* * *

WHAM.

The fist hit hard, dead on target and without any sort of remorse.

Shinji was thrown to the ground like a piece of paper blown away by the wind –

Effortlessly.

Suzuhara Touji's fist was still shaking, as if some of the anger he had just converted into kinetic energy and released into the environment were still sticking to it.

To be frank, he was extremely pissed off that the person who had nearly murdered his poor little sister actually had the audacity to flaunt it, and one simple punch was hardly enough to discharge the wrath that had accumulated over the past few weeks where had had been forced to see his usually so energetic, lively little sister tied to the white sheets of a hospital bed.

"Sorry, dude, I certainly don't welcome every transferee like this, but I couldn't be satisfied until I'd kicked your ass!" came his halfhearted apology, before he turned around, leaving the young Ikari lying on the ground like some used tissue.

Which was pretty much what he felt like right now.

Everyone would be grateful, his ass! Shinji would laugh out loud if he didn't feel like bawling. _He'_ d be grateful if he wasn't beaten up for his trouble…

Touji's four-eyed buddy – Aida Kensuke? – hadn't been able to follow his friend fast enough to deter him, but unlike his friend, didn't think it beneath him to actually lower himself to Shinji's face.

He may have been smiling, but it might as well have been a smirk of contempt, and considering that not even his own father seemed to be able to think of a reason to be friendly with him, the latter looked a lot more realistic to him.

But he was mistaken: "Please don't blame him. His little sister was hurt in the battle. Or well, at least that's his excuse."

He stood up straight and followed his friend.

Some people might have put Kensuke's name on the list of potential friends after this, since he appeared to be sympathetic to Shinji despite being associated with Touji instead of participating in the bullying out of dumb herd instinct, but Shinji's inner reaction to these words was restricted to feeling conned.

These guys had it easy.

It's not like Shinji has _asked_ to be squeezed into the Entry Plug – He hadn't wanted any of this, either. Exactly, he had been forced. Blackmailed in the most despicable manner. All but shanghaied!

No one would ever have shown him any interest gain if he hadn't agreed to it…

For most of the battle, he hadn't even been _capable_ to think of things like collateral damage.

It wasn't as if he hadn't spent the night afterwards in a hospital bed himself, not to speak of those horrible experiences he had been forced to make and had yet to fully process.

"Do you really think…" Shinji started, tentative at first, then more and more intense "…that I'm that thing's pilot of my own free will?"

With that, he had crossed the line.

No, not quite. He had danced back and forth on it to a conga beat, told the line to go fuck itself, got its mother pregnant and aborted the resulting baby.

After everything else, that guy was actually trying to deny his responsibility!

Without thinking a second time, Touji brusquely showed his friend aside, picked Shinji up from the ground like a piece of garbage and threw him right back onto the ground with one last, fulminant punch.

Shinji didn't even bother to sit back up or even wipe the blood off his lips.

The dirt surrounding him was probably just good enough for something like him.

Perhaps he deserved lo lie down here after all.

His lips still bloody, his arm used to half-heartedly shield his eyes from the sun, he expressionlessly looked up to the azure sky, and wished in some corner of his dented soul that some merciful deity might throw some meteor or perhaps a wayward satellite down from the skies, so it could shatter his body and carry him all the way up there, away from this world full of classmates who hated him, EVAs that terrified him and a father who didn't care if he lived or died.

The bleeding on his lips had stopped surprisingly fast, but they were still swollen.

The metallic taste of his own blood still stuck to the inside of his mouth, and Shinji found himself wondering how he even knew what "metallic" was supposed to be if he's never actually put any metal into his mouth.

Shinji didn't come to finish that deliberation as something happened to block his view of the sky in that exact moment.

No satellite, not the meteor he had hoped for, but something of exactly the same color as the canopy concealed behind it – the hair of Ayanami Rei, as he concluded when he slightly tilted his head to get a better look.

He hadn't heard her coming at all.

It was as if she had only just materialized at his side like some ghostly apparition, in her school uniform and her bandages, with a gentle breeze playing with her nineties-style-pageboy cut, still white and fragile like porcelain, looking down at him with these inhuman red eyes.

He hastily wiped the blood of his face. Somehow, he didn't want her to see him like this, in all his wretched glory.

"There is… another emergency." She spoke, barely audible.

"I will… be going ahead."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) In regards to Q, I'm going to say that what you're gonna see here will look more like what we saw in the original trailer from 2.0/ the original series, for various reasons: a) because that was my original plan, b) because I want to comment on the original series as well and the two storylines have grown so widely apart that my best efforts can't blend them anymore and c) because I haven't quite processed Q yet. I will, however, probably use bits and pieces from it, and I'm thinking (still uncertainly, but I feel like I need this out of my system at some point – I feel like I must'n run away from it, in a sense) about inserting the plot of Q at a later point (those "in the know" may already suspect where), but if I ever do, there will, of course, be an explicit spoiler warning. In any case, it's still far away so you can safely keep reading without getting spoiled - Even in the original German version of this, I'm not even past the action arc yet (I have lengthened it significantly, though. I'd say the fanfic as a whole is 31% complete so far, with about 8% existing in english.)
> 
> (2) Sorry that it took so long – but I guess you can't have honors like memetic status, discussion in forums or a TV-tropes article unless you publish stuff in English so yeah… I should get back to work.
> 
> (3) So, what about that new emergency and how will our protagonist handle his first proper combat experience? Find out in the next chapter: 08: [Toy Soldier]


	9. 08: [Toy Soldier]

_You say_

_You're not gonna fight,_

_'Cause no one will fight for you_

_And you think_

_There's not enough love_

_And no one to give it to_

_And you're sure_

_You've hurt for so long,_

_You've got nothing left to lose_

_So you say_

_You're not gonna fight_

_'Cause no one will fight for you_

_You say_

_The weight of the world_

_Has kept you from letting go_

_And you think_

_Compassion's a flaw_

_And you'll never let it show_

_And you're sure_

_You've hurt in a way_

_That no one will ever know_

_But some day_

_The weight of the world_

_Will give you the strength to go_

_Hold on,_

_The weight of the world_

_Will give you the strength to go_

_So hold on_

_The weight of the world_

_Will give you the strength to go_

_So hold on_

_The weight of the world_

_Will give you the strength to go_

_Just hold on,_

_The weight of the world_

_Will give you the strength to go_

_-Linkin Park,'Robot Boy'_

* * *

**Excerpt from the personal diary of Horaki Hikari:**

"Since we had been doing evacuation drills for years, this was almost an everyday occurrence to us – I don't think we really realized the situation we were in. The boys were all being noisy and horsing around like we were on some sort of road trip, but we girls weren't afraid either."

* * *

Central Dogma was already brimming with activity.

Before the actual battle could even begin, they were left with a very short time frame to evacuate the civilian population, move the central complexes down to the geofront, informing various authorities and activating the city's intercept systems.

The reason for all this was currently floating across the landscape, and, by extension, the monitors of NERV HQ, still a good distance away from the capital:

The next messenger had arrived, a longish, salmon-colored being whose clunky body that, despite her apparent heaviness, floated effortlessly over the ground.

Her head, a massive chunk of flesh distantly resembling the head of a squid or an octopus had a spot on each of its sides that may have been mistaken for eyes on first glance.

Those peculiar spots were white at the edges, but their middles displayed an almost uncanny glow reminiscent of the colors of a flickering flame.

But whatever purpose those markings may serve, the angel's actual eyes were in her face which much like that of her predecessor's, resembled the mask of a medieval plague-doctor.

Another similarity was the deep red core, which she, too, had embedded between her ribs, with the difference that this specimen had notably more of them, some of which wiggled about like insect legs.

The messenger also possessed two misshapen, rudimentary-looking protrusions that could be equated with arms – That the 'hands', if those shapeless lumps of flesh qualified for that appellation, appeared to be folded for prayer as she soared above the scenery, was no mere given of her anatomy or a position taken for comfort, but a deliberate, defiant taunt, a declaration of intent, an open, pompous gesture of ridicule that the massive mountain of meat indulged in as she majestically marched across the skies.

She was showing the Lillim beneath her for what exact purpose she had left the red waters of the ocean: To _serve._

And the Lillim knew exactly, what this service encompassed, what it consisted of.

They knew that she would wash them off the surface of this planet like nothing more than a particularly persistent stain of dirt, to finally claim the Promised Land for her own kind after such a long, long time.

Unlike her predecessor, Shamshel, the angel of the day, did not come as a pioneer, but as a conqueror.

Her calls were still heard by the entity just the same, but she didn't do more than look up, directly at her right through all those many buildings between them, briefly acknowledge Shamshel's presence and then proceed to mind her own business, carrying the naked male corpse she had thrown over her shoulder, carrying it with ease despite her seemingly petite build through the already evacuated fortress city.

To worry because of Adam's pitiful spawn was only giving them more credit than they were due.

Now, it remained to be mentioned that while the corpse that the blue-haired woman was carrying was nude, the entity herself was not. Even with the use of multiple belts, she had only been able to fasten the far too loose, far too long trousers in a very haphazard manner; Her victim's shirt, which she had also taken, didn't fit all too well either and it didn't seem to have occurred to her to close it, baring the space between her breasts and a varying fraction of the mammaries themselves, depending on her posture.

The long, blue hair was messily stuffed into bonnet, with various strands sticking out.

The entity was beginning to learn.

Obviously, the personnel in central dogma were far less relaxed about the angel's arrival.

This was the second deployment, and not only for their pilot – last time, they had been caught off their guards only to be saved by an unpredictable freak accident, but this next trial would prove whether this organization and its facilities could live up to their all-but trivial task.

Considering the stakes left no more consideration for the circumstances that almost everyone here was a beginner.

Not even if the beginners in question were fourteen year-olds on top of that.

"…and of course, the fifth angel has to turn up just when Commander Ikari is away on a business trip… I had expected that we'd have more time…"

"The last one left us fifteen years to prepare…" Hyuuga agreed.

"This time, there were only three weeks of respite."

"They never think about our circumstances, don't they?" Misato commented. "That's exactly the sort of bastards that we women hate the most!"

In the meantime, the images on the various screens followed the angel as the many ordnances of the fortress city emptied themselves into her direction – As expected, to little avail.

"That's just a waste of tax money." Fuyutsuki opined.

"Economic interests." Misato concluded. "I'd bet that someone would get into trouble if we don't waste enough ammunition."

Meanwhile, Aoba had finished the call he'd just taken.

"The government demands that we deploy an Evangelion again."

"They're annoying!" Misato complained. "As if we need their approval for that."

* * *

By now, the civilians were, without exception, in safe bunkers.

Including two certain boys.

Not, that they were particularly happy about it – At least Kensuke, who was fiddling with his camcorder's antenna while eying its small screen disappointedly, seemed rather bummed that he wasn't somewhere else right now.

"Cripes!" he complained, holding the camcorder in front of his friend's face so he could see as well. Said friend had already taken off his shoes, tied them together by the laces and hung them over his neck.

"Let me guess: Just tickers and letters on the screen, again?" Touji asked, knowing his sidekick well enough to tell that just from his expression without having to glance at the small screen first.

"They've issued a press embargo." Kensuke muttered. "We civilians are being kept in the dark once again. For once, something interesting actually _happens_ , and we're _missing_ it as we speak!"

* * *

Someone who certainly wasn't going to miss anything at all was Shinji, who had already put on his plugsuit and boarded his EVA.

Shinji suffered the filling of the entryplug and the colorfull lights upon activation without a sound, barely registering how his mind opened itself to the Evangelion.

Once again, the asked himself his usual questions, deep in thought: What was he actually doing here? Why was he even piloting this thing?

His father wasn't even here to watch him…

He never had any real reasons to do this… by now, he even had solid reasons _not_ to do it.

For once, he wouldn't get beaten up for it anymore.

But to get out of here this late, he'd have to open his mouth and say it… but then, everyone would try to convince him and they would probably hate him even more than they probably already did…

* * *

At that same moment, the reason for the young pilot's discontentment was occupied with staring at the air, positively looking somewhat pensive.

While he didn't look the part, Suzuhara Touji had always possessed a very strong sense of justice, which was also why he couldn't suffer the guy who did those things to his sister getting off scot free.

But that was when he had been seething with anger, and in part, frustrated with his own inability to help his sister in any significant way.

Now that he had his steam had been vented off and the passage of time had given him some time to cool off, however, his head was clear again and as far as he made his thoughts wander, they always kept circling back to that pitiful image of the transferee beaten to the ground, not even attempting to resist in any way as Touji had generously wiped the floor with him.

The shockwaves coming through from the surface didn't make it any better, either – at least, judging by his use of that half-whispered tone usually reserves for planning and conspiracy, they seemed to have given Kensuke some sort of stupid idea: "Hey, you got a moment? I have something to talk to you about…"

"So what's the deal?" Touji replied.

"It's confidential." the military otaku whispered.

Touji, who already knew from experience what he was expected to do whenever the need for such a 'confidential' conversation should arrive, (It was something like a 'secret code word' between the two of them, or at least, that's what Kensuke liked to call it) just grinned, confirmed that he'd understood and went to look for the class representative who was, a few picnic blankets to the left, engaged in a conversation with another girl.

"Hey, class rep!" he called out casually, trying to grab the supposed authority figure's attention.

"What's the matter?"

"I gotta take a leak. And Kensuke here, too."

"What, _now_?" Hikari retorted in disgust, eying them like a pair of naughty kindergarteners. "Alright, but hurry up, will you?"

And so, Touji and Kensuke got to continue their conversation in the peace and quiet of a room full of urinals, and, now that they were here anyway, took the opportunity to empty their bladders.

"So, what's the matter?"

"This is a once-in-a-lifetime chance! I can't possibly miss this!"

"What? The battle up there? Kensuke… You can't be serious…"

"Of course! Who knows just when the enemy will strike the next time? Even you can't tell me that you don't want to see a proper battle with your own eyes, at least once! This may be our only chance…

Help me to break the gates open!"

"Kensuke, this is dangerous…"

"No one knows whether we're safe _here_ , so we might as well go up there!"

"You Dummy. What do you think NERV is for?"

"Yeah, but think! What's NERVs most important weapon? The transfee's robot! Last time, he protected us, but you hit him. Twice, at that. What if he no longer feels like piloting that robot? We'd all be goners. It's practically your moral duty to go out there and cheer him on!"

Kensuke. That sneaky bastard.

By now, he knew very well what exact buttons he had to press with Touji, and he wasn't even embarrassed to resort to dirty tricks like this one.

"Alright, alright! I'm coming. I know you well enough to know that you won't shut up until you get what you want…"

The military geek's answer consisted solely of a silent, knowing smile.

* * *

"So, Shinji-kun, are you ready?" Misato asked over the intercom.

"Yeah…" Shinji replied, toneless like an automaton.

In some corner of his mind, he asked himself if it was even _possible_ to be ready for something like this.

As far as he could tell, he was, at least, properly connected to the Evangelion. There was some sort of 'data flow' taking place, he could practically feel his own nervouness seeping into the violet fiend, and there was something flowing back, as well.

Presumably, his orders would take that same route – and soon, the pain as well, as much as he tried not to think of that yet.

"Remember your training. Just aim for the core, and fire at it as much and as quickly as you can." Dr. Akagi explained one last time.

And by then, it was already beginning; all parties involved were taking their places.

Misato gave the launch order, the angel unfolded her arms and brought herself into an upright position, revealing her bizarre thorax with its wriggling ribs and parts of her exposed spine. Her hands, too, little more than roughly triangular clumps, turned to move into what the angel probably defined as her 'battle formation', proudly displaying her form's full height like a peacock brandishing its tail feathers.

Her head, however, stayed horizontal, possibly due to the placement of its sensory organs.

In the meantime, Touji and Kensuke has successfully escaped their shelter and were running up some large stairs that were carved into the mountainside leading to a small shrine at the top of the mountain under which the shelter had been built, hoping to get a better view from there.

Inseparable from Kensuke was, of course, his camcorder, which he pointed at the battlefield the very moment he reached the top, zooming past the smaller of the city's skyscrapers which, unlike their taller cousins, had not been retracted to safety.

Touji was only one step behind him, incredulously eying the plump, alien creature before them.

It looked like some surrealist painter's attempt to sketch a crossbreed between a dildo and a giant squid.

Until now, he had only _heard_ about these beings and their unparalleled destructive force, but this was the first time seeing one with his own eyes.

Conversely, Kensuke didn't seem shocked at all, but brimming with excitement.

Of course. After all, these battles had yet to get one of _his_ relatives flattened.

"This is the moment I've been waiting for all of my life!" he exclaimed, fevered. "There! It's coming to the surface! Any moment now!"

And sure enough, it did come.

Somewhere roughly in the direction Kensuke had pointed his trusted his electronic gadget towards, an entire building started moving, parts of it began sliding sideways and in the end, a whole wall got pulled upwards and folded together like a giant sun-blind, revealing, just as Kensuke predicted, Evangelion Unit 01, or more precisely, the spot where it soon emerged from the ground.

Touji secretly wondered just how his nerdish friend was always so very well informed.

But then, his attention was drawn by the purple colossus as its last lock bolts were released.

"There it is!" Kensuke commented, stating the obvious while he was marveling at the EVA through his camcorder.

At that Moment, the person actually piloting the humanoid war machine was facing fairly different worries;

The last battle, and with it, the way he had helplessly stumbled before the enemy's feet was still fresh in his memory.

He may have had some training in the meantime, but none of that changed that he was stuck in a goddamn life-and-death battle, and that no one was coming to help him if he should fail.

And failing appeared to be the one single thing he was honestly good at.

Feeling his panic rising, he clung to the few words of guidance he had been left with by the people who had stuffed him into this thing in the first place.

"Hang in there, Shinji-kun." They had said.

"Remember your training, Shinji-kun." They had said.

Yes, exactly, the training, the training…

He did not think that those few simulations had been enough to prepare an absolute good-for-nothing like himself for a proper battle, but his training contained orders.

Clear instructions he could follow, simple actions he could execute.

He just had to aim for that red thingamabob in the middle and pull the trigger, right?

The EVA was even supposed to have a computerized route guidance system…

Aim for the center of the target and pull the trigger.

"Aim for the center of the target… and pull the trigger…"

"Aim for the center of the target… and pull the trigger…"

"Aim for the center of the target… and pull the trigger…"

"Aim for the center of the target… and pull the trigger…"

After repeating those words to himself again and again, as if to ascertain their meaning, he jumped out of his cover and, accelerated by mortal fear, aimed his gun directly at the red monster.

He immediately began shooting as fast as his fingers let him, but some unwritten law of nature seemed to dictate that Ikari Shinji was not allowed to get anything right.

"You're providing the angel cover with all that smoke, you idiot!" he heard Misato scolding him over the intercom. But Shinji did not stop. He simply didn't know _what else_ he could do right now. It was the only accessible tactic his brain had to offer after any higher thinking processes had been brought to a grinding halt by his paralyzing fear.

He fired, fired and fired, shooting bullets huge enough for their rapidly dropping shells to smash cars, resorting to what video game enthusiast might refer to as the classic spray-and-pray-maneuver.

Except… eventually, his ammunition ran out.

Shinji gave his breathing some time to normalize and eyed the wall of smoke with mixed expectations, waiting for it to dissipate so he could see whether that thing was defeated or not – but he didn't have to wait that long to find out.

Of all sudden, he saw something speeding out of the smolder – It looked like some sort of whip, actually, two of those, but their glow bore some resemblance to Star Wars-style light sabers.

Whatever it was, since actually ducking would have required a certain measure of coordination and conscious thought for an unathletic person such as himself, Shinji's ensuing movement was closer to letting himself, or rather, the Evangelion, (he always had to remind himself to separate that) fall backwards against gravity, a spur-of-the-moment, panic-driven reaction that probably saved his life – The building he had just been standing next to was now neatly cut in half.

He could feel the vibrations as the upper half came crushing down.

"What the… That guy already lost!" Touji commented back at his lookout point, still not really able or willing to summon up any sympathy for his new classmate. Kensuke, who had a somewhat different view of things, i.e., was rooting for Shinji, just replied that he was bound to stand up again.

But it wasn't that easy.

The pilot of EVA 01 barely took notice of Misato's order to get the replacement rifle or its emergence from one of the nearby buildings.

That huge, gigantic monster… had just barely failed to kill him.

And here he was, once again, lying completely defenseless before the (this time purely proverbial) feet of the enemy.

Shinji couldn't even pull himself together far enough to properly grip the control yokes. His hands were trembling.

Ah, to hell with that, _all_ of him was trembling.

Not even Misato's continuous inquiries managed to get through to the fear-stricken boy.

They had just stuffed him into some huge… thing and expected him to fight a ginormous monster with laser… knive… whip… things…

That hadn't been part of his training.

He was completely helpless, unable to even form one single clear thought.

Accordingly, EVA 01 didn't budge a single millimeter from where it was.

"Holy shit, looks like being punched in the face affected him more than I thought." Kensuke remarked with feigned nonchalance, yet another step in his insidious plot to make Touji regret his earlier actions.

He hated it when Kensuke pulled employed that sort of psychological warfare – especially when he was armed with the truth. "Oh, just shut up!" Touji snapped, both at Kensuke and the imaginary little Disney-angel on his right shoulder.

At that same moment, Shinji was utterly incapable of doing anything else than to helplessly stare up at the angel as she erected herself before him, almost playfully swinging her light whips around, boisterous like a huge, fat cat toying with her prey.

….THIS…..IS…TOO….EASY….

This was followed with an oscillation-like fluctuation in her AT-Field that Shinji could barely withstand or neutralize – He had yet to learn how to properly use his own, he was closer to passively asking something within the beast he was sitting in to take care of it in his stead than he was to actively controlling it himself.

The messenger briefly made the strength and intensity of her own flare up; It was not like she could hold that higher level for extended periods of time, but rather a gesture of showing off, a form of ridicule, perhaps her equivalent of laughter.

All this happened in a timeframe too short for Shinji to properly process or interpret those sensations, he just felt yet another sudden wave of terror and intimidation washing over him.

Finally, the grand huntress decided to finish her prey and stove to sever the source of its life, but Shinji managed to jump to the side at the last second, unable to explain that with anything other than the adrenaline or the EVAs superhuman strength.

But his escape did not bother the massive red creature in the slightest; her enemy was just running from her, unable to even scramble to his shaky feet.

She was almost beginning to enjoy this.

How could her predecessor possibly have fallen to this incomplete, twisted creature?

….TOO…EASY….

Shinji managed another dodge, narrowly escaping oblivion, but it was no use –

That thing kept following him faster and faster, advancing by the second, coming closer and closer, shredding the tall buildings around him left and right like they were nothing but toothpicks.

Snip! Snap! Snippety snip!

There was not even time to even _think_ of counterattacking.

All he could do was run away, always a hair's breadth away from losing his life.

He managed to find temporary shelter behind a front of somewhat sturdier buildings, only to be forced to conclude, to his utmost shock, that his pursuer had hacked his power cable in twain.

The clock was already ticking.

He didn't even have as much as five minutes left to come up with some sort of strategy to fight back or at least think of his next hiding place, but before he got the chance to do either, he was forced to realize that his enemy had already finished mowing down all the buildings between herself and her adversary.

The instant he noticed the tentacle constricting around his foot, he was already flying through the air.

…..SUCH….. A….DODDLE…..

Exactly. The angel, still certain of her victory, gleefully enacting her dominance over her prey by making it her plaything, spontaneously decided to try herself at the discipline of EVA-throwing, hurling unit one all across the landscape.

He didn't think that anything in this world would still be able to trump all the abstruse things that had happened to him until now, and yet, he had to concede that this was by far the craziest of them all.

He probably would have laughed out loud if he wasn't busy screaming his lungs out because he was, y'know, BEING CATAPULTED SEVERAL KILOMETERS THROUGH THE AIR.

EVA 01 hammered down on the mountain like a stone, the force of the impact was simply colossal and flooded the boy's nervous system with pain.

"Shinji-kun? Shinji-kun? Are you all right? _Say_ something!"

It was no use.

Even Misato could see that. "Damage report!"

"-Nothing mayor. He can do it."

Yes, maybe he would still have been able to defeat the angel without further ado, if it wasn't for that one, tiny little detail.

Or rather, _two_ details, pretty much the first thing he noticed once he had picked himself together enough to raise his head and check his surroundings.

There, directly between the Evangelion's purple fingers that had avoided smashing them by chance alone, they stood, quaking with fear, trembling with tears in their eyes.

The two boys from earlier.

Aida Kensuke and Suzuhara Touji.

The kind boy with the camcorder and… the one who beat him up.

The one whose younger sister had nearly been killed because of Shinji's uselessness.

Okay. The universe _had_ to be out of ideas for absurd coincidences by _now_ , at least. The two looked so tiny compared to the Evangelion, and the sheer thought that he could squash them like insects with but a single, wrong move pumped pure ice through his veins.

And that was the _least_ of his worries – the angel had caught up to him and he could see her readying her laser tentacles – normally he would jump away now, but he couldn't risk to send those through whirling through the air, or worse, crush them.

There was no way he could possibly go on living with that kind of guilt…

So, he made a desperate move.

He himself couldn't say how he came up with it, but while he couldn't dodge those things, they had to be solid to a degree and did not cut things by default; after all, he had been thrown with them.

Nah, when he really thought about it in hindsight, he had to admit that he had been acting on the simple, primal instinct to keep the dangerous things away from his face.

It was dumb luck that his hands weren't shredded to minced meat right there and then, and now, they were on the best way to a promising career as barbecue.

Those light whips weren't something one could touch just like that – they were, after all, brimming with energy, as demanded by their purpose.

Shinji felt like he was touching the molten core of the earth, if not the fires of hell; And those whips were _strong_ , pressing against his own hands and burning them simultaneously.

All he could do was to keep holding on without a single clue of how he could possibly escape this terrible situation.

Just the pain, that torrid, horrific pain that he could only bear with his teeth firmly clenched, and that wasn't even the worst of it; Just any moment now, he could die, or worse, kill someone!

It was so dreadful, so horrendous, fear like he'd never known before. What should he do; what should he do, just what should he do…

"Why doesn't he just stand up and fight back?"

"Because _we're_ here, don't you get it?" Kensuke shouted, dropping the subtile methods in the face of the dire situation and saying what he really thought instead: "…He can't move freely because he doesn't want to flatten us! He's trying to protect us!"

Then, the heavens opened up and out came the light of salvation, clad in Misato's voice over the intercom. She could no longer stand to watch this and the pressure of this situation had squeezed a creative solution out of her: "Move, quickly! Let the two of them into the cockpit!"

"Captain Katsuragi! Do you really think that civillians are allowed into the entry plug without authorization?" Akagi protested.

" _I_ will authorize it."

"And you are sure that you aren't overstepping your authority there?"

"Do it."

And so, the two boys were presented with their rescue by way of a rope-ladder and a voice of the intercom that urged them to hurry up and climb inside – An order that no remotely reasonable human being would have had to be given twice.

What they found inside the entry plug, however, was not quite what they expected.

"Is that… water? M-My camera! My camera!"

But the two quickly noticed that they weren't dealing with water, if not for anything else, then because they were able to breathe it.

Descending further down, they could see the – now somewhat shaky – interface materializing before their eyes that offered them an uncomfortably close view of the monster.

And even further down, they found the transferee, sitting in some metal contraption, wearing strange, skin-tight clothing, with his teeth clenched and signs of great exertion in his face.

There were surprisingly little control devices in the cockpit. Instead, that fluid was steadily, noticeably heating up and getting into motion…

"We have abnormal synapse readings!"

"It's hardly a surprise, we have two foreign presences in the matrix, and we can't exactly isolate their nerve pulses…"

Shinji could not take this pain for much longer, the batteries would be empty at any moment and the layers of the EVA's armor were melting like ice in the sunshine, one after another.

He had to end this.

Right now.

Now that these two were here… Now that these two were watching… he couldn't _afford_ to fail.

In his desperation, Shinji yanked the angel closer to himself, only to hurtle her away by her own arms, exploiting the Evangelion's raw strength.

"Well done! Now, retreat!" Misato ordered.

But once again, the order did not reach its intended recipient.

Hesitantly, Unit One rose from the ground.

The armor on the hands had all but disintegrated, and what had come to light from beneath them bore an absurd resemblance to _normal, human hands, complete with fingernails…_

To severely burned human hands.

While Kensuke was still mourning his camcorder, Touji was reminding his new classmate that he had orders to retreat, but even he could no longer get through to him.

Most likely, Shinji himself couldn't have described just what exactly got the better of him that moment.

The ticking clock, no, the icy certainty, that an useless person like him wouldn't make it to a safe place in time, that he would just plain fail to save those two and receive even more blame for it, the unthinkable notion of turning his back to this thing to flee from her, the pain still simmering in his palms, the need to prove to these two that he wasn't a bad person, or just the bare horror that every further second inside this thing was to him.

He just knew that he wanted this unbearable situation to end already.

He wanted it to stop!

He wanted out of here!

Again, he clung to a simple sentence, this time one that had helped him before.

"I mustn't run away, I mustn't run away, I mustn't run away, imustnrunaway, imustntrunaway, imustntrunaway, imustntrunawayimustnrunawayi mustntrunaway…"

He activated the prog-knife.

And then, neither orders nor appeals to rationality could stop him.

Shinji expulsed one bloodcurdling war cry, as if he had released a piece of his damned soul through his mouth directly into the heavens, and charged the angel like a berserker, let himself slide down the mountainside with the knife in his hands and tears of pure fear in his eyes, running, because he was terrified too far out of his mind to stop, driving his knife deeply into the angel's core.

The angel's light whips impaled the Evangelion's abdomen, lacerating whatever was inside.

The pain was so intense that Shinji could not find the air to scream.

He had failed.

But he _mustn't_ fail, he couldn't afford to fail, not now, not like this…

The clock was ticking and, damn it, he had mere seconds left.

Sparks flew, the core cracked, but it still wasn't enough.

He couldn't allow himself to just slump down right now, so he tried to somehow canalize the pain into the battle, pushed at one of the control levers with both hands, pushed this knife deeper inside with every fiber of his being, while the Evangelion, the interface and his own body appeared to be falling to pieces all around him.

And then, it was over.

Finished.

The interface vanished, leaving the three boys in the darkness of the entry plug.

The fifth angel was defeated. Liquefied, like her predecessor. Only the hardened light whips remained, still embedded within the Evangelion's body.

Again, the rain of blood created a rainbow, and soon, it was joined by actual rain.

But these sounds did not even penetrate the walls of the entry plug.

Its inside was completely silent – save for Ikari Shinji's uncontrollable sobbing and whimpering.

His lament had no end, his face reddened beneath the never ending streams of tears and the snot that came with them, the pitiful, repulsing image of a thoroughly broken human being.

He just couldn't make himself stop – and Touji could no longer deny that he had done him an injustice…

* * *

"But let's forget Shinji-kun and Captain Katsuragi for once… What on earth were those two boys thinking?"

"They probably weren't thinking at all, Maya. They're in the middle of puberty." Akagi commented, squeezing her cigarette out against a corner of her ashtray as she directed another glance at the diagrams and numeric values on the papers held in her other hand.

"…but it's interesting that they were able to cause this much interferences without even an interface-headset – and that Shinji-kun was still able to operate the EVA regardless of that… Those two might as well be the most promising of our candidates…"

"What candidates… and for what?"

"For nothing, forget it. Let's continue with the damage evaluation…"

* * *

A usual day in class II-A.

The boys were goofing off, the girls were chatting, Rei was staring out of the window, where there was, for once, actually something to be seen – namely a heavy, overcast sky and the downpour falling out of it – and Kensuke was keeping himself busy with some rather… unique activity, precisely, the rendering of a 3-D-model of the most recent heavenly attacker.

There was just one thing missing…

Yes, exactly. Those goofing boys were lacking their respected war chief in their epic struggle against the organizing force of the class representative – Suzuhara Touji.

It was not that he was absent from class again, no, he was sitting on his desk.

Or rather, more like sulking over it, a condition which had become his default state for these last few days.

"It has been three days now…"

"Since we got the lecture of a lifetime?" Kensuke offered.

"No… since the transferee stopped coming to school…"

"My, my, you really _are_ stubborn. If you had apologized to him right away, you could have saved yourself three days of moping."

Touji's mood seemed rotten enough to keep him from coming up with any sort of cheeky retort.

Kensuke typed something into his laptop and then proceeded to scribble something unto a piece of paper.

"Here. I've got you the transferee's phone number. If you're worried about him, just call him."

* * *

Touji _did_ take the paper and retreated into the hallway where through lucky circumstance, a public phone happened to be situated relatively close to their classroom.

Glancing sideways at the paper to check again and again, Touji pressed the first few keys…

And stopped at the last one.

He could talk big, no doubt there, but an actual apology…

He did not know how to really express that.

No, Kensuke hadn't 'tenderized' him just yet.

Right now, he just wasn't… ready for this.

And thus, Shinji's new cellphone remained just as unused as before.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) The angel ordinals will follow Rebuild at first, mainly because I couldn't imagine a world without Mari vs. Tunnel angel, but this will include classic angels that weren't in Rebuild, extracanonical angels and perhaps even creations of my own. As you have seen, I've used Shamshel's Rebuild-Design because I think it looks creepier. You can also expect Rebuild!Ramiel, but this isn't a general rule. I much prefer Bardiel as a white slime thing and I liked it when the dummy plug was solid red.
> 
> (2) The designer of Shamshel apparently considered her female and depicted her as such in a comic strip. Yes. I know. My first guess would've been "male", too, I actually had to go back and correct this chapter when I found out.
> 
> (3) So yeah, OUCH. The battle is won, but at what price? What adverse effects will this horrible trauma have on the tender soul of unfortunate protagonist? Find out in the next Chapter, 09: [So Close]


	10. 09: [Fugue]

_I've spent so much time_

_throwing rocks at your window_

_That I never even knocked_

_on the front door_

_I walk by statues_

_never even made one chip_

_but if i could leave a mark on the monument of the heart_

_I just might lay myself down_

_with little more hope than I had_

_the last day_

_Wait a time_

_and spare these lies_

_we tell ourselves_

_These days have come and gone_

_But this time is sweeter than honey_

_Evanescence, 'So Close'_

* * *

**Excerpt from the second interim-report about the first battle in Neo-Tokyo-3 by the leader of the operations division and thus, the person responsible for the operation, Captain Katsuragi Misato:** _"Even if we were victorious, lots of damage was caused, and for us from the operations division, this battle was a trial that exposed many miscalculations and showed us that there is still much to improve. Regardless, it is to be commended that Ikari Shinji, a completely untrained, unprepared boy succeeded in carrying out the operation, no, that he even agreed to participate in it."_

* * *

In the time the NERV personnel needed to reach the battlefield, retrieve the EVA, relocate it onto a transportation framework, remove the Entry Plug and open it as the last step just before transporting it back to HQ, Ikari Shinji had been weeping incessantly.

Neither Touji nor Kensuke dared to address him in that state, even less after having witnessed the suffering he had just gone through with their very own eyes.

Shinji didn't even release himself from his position, keeping his hands and arms pressed against the control lever and his head hanging in between them.

He had no strength left to move from this spot, let alone subject himself to the judgment of his classmates or even look them in the eyes.

All he could do was cry.

Sure, his sobs of lament got quieter over time, but when the NERV technicians opened the main hatch of the entry plug after it had been extracted and the bulk of the LCL had been expulsed, they still found him in that exact same posture.

However, when he was asked to come out, he rose from his seat and complied almost mechanically, wordlessly walking over to one area that had been previously encircled with curtain-like partition screens, where a short, medical checkup was to take place, right past Touji and Kensuke whose concerned looks he did not seem to register.

The two were already being expected by several security employees in black and soon marshaled somewhere different, presumably to get thoroughly chewed out.

Shinji, on the other hand, was asked by a somewhat elderly physician to sit down on an examination couch which had also been set up there and to remove his plug suit from the waist up.

He followed all instructions like a robot and wordlessly sat through the procedures.

It quickly became apparent that he had escaped completely unscathed this time – physically, that is.

After he had thus been discharged fairly fast, he passively let himself be escorted back to headquarters, flat out incapable to independently do or say anything – Any and all 'processing capacity' in his skull was far too busy with futile attempts to come to terms with the events of the last five minutes – It was hard to believe that it really had been this short.

One might as well have asked a cheap calculator to compute the exact value of pi.

Once they arrived at HQ, Shinji was left in a room with multiple showers in it – Shinji had been here before, quite often, mostly after his training, but never after a battle – the first one had left him incapable of leaving the EVA on his own two feet.

On one of the two benches which were also present in the room, he was being awaited by a pile of neatly folded clothes and a cold drink in a paper cup, complete with a straw, and the first thing he did was to take a deep gulp out of the latter to calm himself and soothe his throat after all of that panicked screaming.

After that first gulp, however, he decided to shower before anything else – less because of any thoughts that someone might be expecting him somewhere, than because of his wish to rid himself of the plug suit and the remaining LCL sticking to him as quickly as he could, since both of these things kept reminding him of the battle.

Peripherally, he wondered why in the world there were so many showers here.

Right now, both they and the closely situated, similarly large locker room were frequented by him alone. Sure, there was still Ayanami who was currently out of commission because of her injuries, but this room seemed too big for even _two_ people.

From the looks of it, he would have guessed that it had been intended for significantly more users.

But Shinji was far too enervated to think about it for all too long – Ever since he had moved to Tokyo-3, his life had ceased to make sense anyway.

Thus, he quickly shed his plug suit, occupied one of the showers and gave his body a thorough scrubbing, as if he were hoping to wash off those horrible memories along with the LCL.

That didn't quite work, but at least the hot water did him good.

After he'd rubbed himself dry with a towel that had also been provided to him, he hung it over the saloon-door-like flaps that served as entrance to the individual shower he was in and presumably to shield the user's private parts from the other occupants if this shower room should ever come to be frequented by more people than just him, and put on the clothes – among them loose black trousers and a blue t-shirt – in no particular order.

And since he hadn't been given any further orders, he just sat down on one of the benches, grabbed his drink, and waited.

For a while, he was left alone, left waiting in his silent darkness, without being subjected to further demands or expectations.

But then, the door opened, and some entered.

Shinji didn't have the heart to even look up.

"…why did you disobey my order?"

It was Misato's voice. She sounded positively cross.

Of course… of course there would be no kind words.

The organization didn't give a damn about the hell he just went through.

They had taken it for granted that he would win.

All he was to them was a glorified extension cable to rely their orders to the EVA, they expected him to function, and that was all.

"I'm sorry." He answered quietly. That was what they wanted to hear from him right now, wasn't it?

That's why she had come.

Wasn't it that what he had to say so they would be nice to him again?

"You are aware that I'm responsible for you and this operation, aren't you?"

"Yeah…"

"And this means that you have to do exactly as I tell you. Do you understand what this means?"

"Yeah…"

"So, this will never happen again?"

"Yeah…"

By then, Misato had had enough. Did that child really think that the problem would just go away if he played the poor, beleaguered victim and recited a few apologies to placate her?

"Are you sure that you're even listening to me?"

"Yeah…"

"Damnit, Shinji-kun! This isn't about you saying yes to everything, you need to _understand_!"

"Yeah… I do understand, Misato-san. But the important part is that we won, isn't it? If you need me to pilot the EVA again… just tell me…"

And now that unnerving feigned calm. That was the last thing she needed right now.

So, she marched over to where he was and leaned forward, hoping that she may have better chances at getting through to him if she was at eye level with him.

"Listen up, you may think that's it's easier to go with the flow than to take responsibility for your actions, but if you pilot the EVA with that sort of attitude, _you will die_!"

"Who cares? I don't, and I know no one else does."

The worst was that he never stopped presenting her that false, defiant smile, even when saying something like this.

"If you expected me to applaud you for your so-called heroism, you thought wrong. I won't do any such thing."

"I don't care about that." Shinji lied. "After all, I'm the only one who can pilot Unit one, right?"

That went too far.

Misato could no longer bear to look at that poorly- faked farce of resignation.

Why couldn't he just tell her to her face what the hell he had been thinking? How was she supposed to help him otherwise, heh?!

Irate, she grabbed the fourteen-year-old by the seam of his shirt and pulled him upwards, as if she wanted to force him to look her straight in the eyes.

In the process, his drink found its way to the floor – he didn't seem to have expected this.

Still, he seemed neither impressed nor intimidated.

And he still wasn't looking into her eyes.

It was simply no use.

So, she let go of him.

"Enough with this. You better go home… and rest."

It was only after the boy had left the shower room with his head hanging in defeat that Misato became fully aware of what she had just done.

She could have slapped herself right then and there – and to be honest, she did.

That boy irritated her to no end…

Of course he did, he was a fourteen-year-old teenager in the middle of puberty, no trained soldier.

A fourteen-year-old teenager who had just been through a life-or-death battle against a gigantic abomination – and then, he'd even been yelled-at for his trouble, by none other than her.

If there was a prize for counter-productiveness, she had probably just won it.

* * *

**Excerpt from observation protocol Number 42, Subject: Code Third Child, penned by Captain Katsuragi Misato:** _"Today, we were attacked by the fifth angel, completely out of the blue. It was successfully defeated and destroyed by Unit One."_

* * *

"Ikari? Ikari Shinji? He only just transferred and he's already missing? Whatever, looks like he'll have to repeat this little surprise test then!"

Collective moaning.

* * *

Shinji was wasting away.

He felt like death warmed over.

For days, he hadn't left his bed for anything but short trips to the fridge or the bathroom. For days, he hadn't ceased to stare at the ceiling, waiting for his life to start being just a little less horrible.

He didn't understand.

He didn't understand this at all.

He had done what they all asked of him, hadn't he?

He had let himself be stuffed into the EVA, even though he'd been beaten up for it, he'd fought the angel despite the mind-numbing agony he had been forced to endure.

He had even won, but apparently, that wasn't enough.

Not enough to earn himself anything resembling kind words…

But if those were beyond his reach, if he couldn't expect any sort of affection, not even from Misato, if nothing he did would please them…

Then what was he even doing here?

Right, what _was_ he doing here?

There was a door.

* * *

A new morning rose over Tokyo-3.

The dawning of a new day.

The dawning of a _shitty_ day.

If the intrusive ringing of her alarm clock wasn't the first thing to tell her so, then it was the distant sound of the pouring rain that convinced Misato that she would have nothing to laugh about today.

After she had shut up the troublesome clock with her right foot, which had been the closest to it of all of her limbs, she stretched herself a little and finally sat up.

It was so very apparent that she _really_ didn't feel like leaving her bed today, but it couldn't be helped.

So, she dragged herself to the bathroom, in her blue pajamas, with her hair in a state of total chaos, using one foot to scratch the other as she morosely brushed her teeth.

Her disheveled reflection wasn't exactly motivating as was the prospect of having to eat breakfast alone – for the fifth time in a row.

Ever since the incident with the fifth angel, Shinji had shut himself in his room to brood – Not that she wasn't partially to blame for this, but this had gone on long enough.

She hoped that she would at least be able to convince him to go to back to school today.

Not that her expectations were particularly high.

By now, the provisional nametag on his room's door had been replaced by a proper, metal one whose heart-shaped surface was now announcing to the world that this was 'Shin-chan's room', but 'Shin-chan' himself wasn't showing the slightest reaction to Misato's knocking.

She gave it another try, this time, accompanied by words:

"Shinji-kun, come on! Just how long do you intend to keep skipping school? You haven't left your bed for five days already!"

No reaction.

"They've even finished repairing Unit One by now, but without its pilot, all it does it catch dust uselessly! Shinji-kun!"

No, it did not look like she was achieving anything besides wasting her breath.

All right.

Maybe he was more likely to listen if she entered his room.

But when Misato opened the door, only a crack wide a first, just to check what he was doing, she found an unpleasant surprise waiting for her:

He was gone.

And not just him;

The cupboards were emptied out, his clothes were missing, much like his sparse belongings, like all sighs that anyone had ever lived in here.

He had even tidied the place up and made his bed.

The only things he'd left behind were his NERV ID-card and a little piece of paper:

'Farewell.'

 _Great._ Apparently, he shared his father's enthusiasm for very short letters.

But that was beside the point.

"He ran away… Why does this even surprise me…"

Damnit.

She had to report this to headquarters.

So she hurriedly grabbed her hairbrush and organized the bird's nest on her head. Next were her clothes, which she pulled over herself at an abnormal speed – lucky for her, as it turned out when the doorbell happened to ring as soon as she had finished putting on her shirt. Hastily donning her uniform jacket on the way, she raced to the entrance of her apartment and manually pulled the door open, too worried to wait for the electronics.

"SHINJI-KUN, WHERE HAVE YOU-"

Wait. No.

Instead of revealing the missing EVA pilot, the door exposed Misato to two now understandably confused-looking boys that somehow looked vaguely familiar to her.

The one on the left was notably taller than his buddy, was wearing a dark blue tracksuit and had brown eyes, relatively tan skin and close-cropped black hair that had been molded into a modern-looking style, possibly with the aid of hair gel.

His companion had a somewhat lighter complexion, freckles, longer, light brown hair and a pair of glasses on his roundish-looking nose.

Unlike his friend, he was present in his uniform.

The taller of the two seemed somewhat… impressed.

"F-Forgive us, Miss…!" Much more wouldn't leave his lips.

But that was apparently why he'd brought his friend: "We're Aida and Suzuhara."

"Aida-kun and… Suzuhara-kun?"

"Yes, uh, I'm Suzuhara." Touji added to prevent confusion in advance.

"Hey, wait…" Misato finally remembered where exactly she'd seen those faces before: "Weren't you the two who were in the entry plug with Shinji-kun?"

"Yes-"

"Yes and we're very sorry."

"We're here because-"

"We're here because Ikari-kun hasn't come to school ever since." Touji finished, continuously taking the words out of Kensuke's mouth.

"We got worried and wanted to check if he's all right."

"Yeah, yes he is." Misato lied with the best sugar-doll-smile she could muster at the moment. "He's just really busy with his pilot training at the moment."

"Yeah, we get it."

"Here's the mountain of paper that's been accumulating on his desk…" Kensuke added, handing Misato the printouts in question.

"That's very kind of you."

"Okay, we'll be going then." Touji stated.

"Please say hi to Ikari-kun for us!" Kensuke amended.

"I will! See you soon!"

Misato waved goodbye and closed the door.

She feared that her act had been rather transparent towards the end.

But the boys' attention had been focused somewhere slightly lower than her face.

"That didn't turn out the way we expected…"

"That was one seriously hot babe…"

* * *

Regardless of her temperature, Misato was, first and foremost really, really miffed.

 _At last_ someone was coming to visit him, someone seemed to have begun to consider him a friend, and where was he?

Right.

Up, up and away!

Exasperated, Misato turned away from the door, just to spin right back a second later and vent her frustrations through a fierce kick against that poor, innocent, pitiable door that had never done anything to harm her.

"SHINJI, YOU IDIOT!"

"…you… Idiot…"

The second time, the insult had lost its vigor.

Presumably, because he may just have gone back to school if he had still been here to meet those two…

* * *

_"Today was another rainy day, the last four days have been one single downpour. Even the analysis of the angel's remains had to be postponed because of this._

_Other than that, there is nothing more to report today."_

* * *

At first, the tram had seemed to be the fastest way to get as far away as possible, but he hadn't thought much further than that.

It wasn't as if he had any sort of destination he wanted to reach.

He was drifting like a ship that had been untied from the rope binding it to the port, and then left to itself and the waves.

He just sat there, with the headphones in his ears, his head hung low, immersing himself in the buckling of the tram;

His surroundings were bustling with activity, the busy conversations of an average weekday he was trying to block out.

No one took notice of the inconspicuous fourteen-year-old sitting on the bench right next to the exit, silent and alone; They all had their own business to think off, people, that accompanied them on their personal journeys.

Outside, the deluge went out without cease, and even when it did subside for a short while, it would always continue pretty soon afterwards. At times, the tram would traverse a tunnel, constantly emptying and filling with new, different people:

Schoolgirls chatting with each other, businesswomen in their blazers, students, mothers with children, either sleeping right next to them or looking out of the widow.

But none of them stayed in this wagon for particularly long, they all had a station to arrive to, a place they were awaited at, a goal to reach.

Shinji had no such place, no place to arrive at, and so, he simply didn't leave the wagon at all.

Thus, his path bit its own tail and became a circle, always going round and round and round, always following the orbital railway.

When he entered here, he had simply picked the first tram that had arrived at the station closest to Misato's apartment, but there was nothing stopping him from leaving and boarding another tram, one that would certainly lead him far, far away from here.

Nothing but the thought of finding himself alone in the darkness of the night, far away from the artificial lights of civilization or anything else to suggest a path for him to continue upon, which just scared him more the harder he thought about it.

He found the mere idea to horrifying that he turned up the volume, hoping for the music to wash it out of his skull, but what he'd feared the most about that possibility was the boundless feeling of solitude such a situation would entail… and just how was it any different from the loneliness that was plaguing him right here, right now, even here amongst all these people…?

Then again, even their numbers was steadily decreasing, since it must have been getting really, really late, more and more were leaving at every single station, and each time the tram stopped, Shinji wondered whether he, too, should leave here, yet in the end, nothing ever came of it; He simply kept listening to his music.

Track 25, Track 26, Track 25.

25, 26, 25

25, 26, 25

25, 26, 25

25, 26, 25

25, 26, 25

25, 26, 25

He thought he had found something like a home, a source of acknowledgement, but he should have expected that no one could possibly want him for his own merits.

No one could possibly want someone like him.

Someone like him who just _couldn't_ do anything right.

For every step he took forward, he always went one back.

One step forwards… and one step back.

One step forwards… and one step back.

For each step forward, another that brought him right back to where he started.

And it was getting darker and emptier around him, the people were disappearing one by one, until the crowd was reduced to a single old man who had fallen asleep under his newspaper, and in the end, even he left.

When the tram finally came to a halt, not even the wet footprints the many people had left behind had remained to keep Shinji company.

According to the automatic announcement coming from the speakers, this was the final destination.

He could no longer stay here.

Shinji raised his head, taking an upright position for what had to be the first time in ages.

"I need to get back!"

He skipped to Track 26.

One step forward…

* * *

…and one step back.

By the time Track 26 had finished playing, that fickle little flame of determination that had shortly flared up there had already been extinguished.

He had wanted to get back, yes, but _how_ was he supposed to get back from here?

It had barely been a month since he moved to this city, and most of that time had been spent in his room or at NERV HQ.

Of course, he could have asked someone for the way, but by the time he arrived at that thought, his motivation had already fully seeped out of him, so he kept wandering the streets aimlessly, never separating himself too far from the crowds.

He found himself in some dirty, godforsaken corner of the inner city, judging by the scraps of conversation he picked up around him, maybe even the red-light-district, but he didn't care, he just tuned up the volume of his music to he wouldn't have to listen to other people enjoying themselves while he was all alone.

With his bag as his only company, he silently waded through the forest of city lights, people and advertisements, just another shadow in a large, dark crowd at the feet of the tall, enormous buildings.

* * *

He happened across a cinema that had one old, bad, cheesy movie about Second Impact running, one that just about everyone would have seen on TV already.

Correspondingly few people had turned up at this ungodly hour to see it; In fact, most of the people who had found their way here didn't seem to be motivated by the movie at all: In the front row, there was a drunk sleeping off his intoxication, somewhere in the middle rows, a homeless man was snoring to himself, having apparently considered this cinema a fine shelter for the night.

Technically, Shinji himself was now homeless as well.

He, too, did not particularly care for what was flickering across the screen; He was here because you could usually buy food at cinemas, but mostly because he had simply felt like having something other than his music washing over him.

Completely apathetic, he stared forwards, not really at the screen, but simply into nothingness, until something else grabbed his attention:

A few rows in front of him, there was a couple, whispering words of love into each other's ears, covering each other in their arms and kisses, and, ultimately, beginning to have Sex.

Shinji blocked out the movie and began observing those two instead, partially disturbed, partially resenting the fact that _he_ didn't have anyone to give himself to…

* * *

This was the first time that he woke up with the same funereal train of thought he'd gone to bed with still going on; It hadn't ever happened to him before that battle. Until now, his experience had always shown this gap, that interruption of his consciousness to be at least a momentary distraction, a partial reset after which the world would just continue going on.

Then again, calling this "going to _bed_ " was a massive overstatement, all he had was a bench in the cinema's lobby – There didn't seem to be anyone left here who could have noticed his presence – his bag as a pillow (There were things inside whose outline he could clearly feel through the fabric, but it was better than nothing) and no blanket to shield himself from the slight cool of the night.

Everything here was foreign, cold, dirty and open, the lights of the vending machines couldn't be turned off, and the toilet here had been dominated by a horrible stench; He could hardly name them all, all those little sources of discomfort, each of which may have seemed trivial, but the sum of them left him downright languished.

He was _already_ the type to have the most niggling neuroses about the smallest little things, he had little to no tolerance for _regular_ unfamiliar places, this here was straight up unbearable.

After a long, long time, he ultimately did fall into a state at least reminiscent of sleep, if only because he no longer had the strength to sustain his "wakefulness" any longer, but not before distantly wondering what it was that he had hoped to find out here.

* * *

The next dawn came enveloped in a cloak of deep red.

The clouds, the buildings, the landscape, it was all tinted in an all-encompassing vermillion by the rising sun.

Shinji had left his little alleyway behind and continued his erratic meandering in the outskirts of the city, finally daring to stray from the most frequented parts of the city now that it was no longer dark.

He was circling the borders of Tokyo-3, following those little dirt tracks that led him into the woods surrounding the metropolis.

Bit by bit, the colossal skyscrapers were being supplanted by sleeker, smaller buildings, many of which were still quite large Apartment buildings.

One of these many distant towers glistening in the reddish light might be Misato's apartment.

Maybe he should…

But the moment he had taken the first step into the corresponding direction, he could already hear it.

He had already noticed its beginnings on his way here, the way it was steadily getting louder and louder, but now, it was beginning to come over him like a rising storm.

This may have been a forest, but this was just too much.

This continuous buzzing, droning and chirping of the innumerable insects rang in his ears like a bizarre, alien, far too disharmonic orchestra, surging to a booming crescendo through the participation of more and more animals.

Shinji covered his ears as best as he could and ran as fast as his legs would carry him, following the street, away from the forest, away from the insects, away from the apparment buildings, just away.

* * *

Most of the day was over by the time he came back to his senses.

His only proof for the passage of time was the battery gauge on his cassette player which seemed a great deal emptier now – He distantly wondered where he would be when it had finally ran out.

In the end, he ended up making himself an improvised, makeshift resting place out of old, discarded cardboard boxes, somewhere in a dark alleyway otherwise populated by stay cats only, which, by virtue of bordering on a larger street lined with city lights, bars and pubs were drunk, cheery people were celebrating until the dawn brought them rest, at least wasn't silent.

When he thought that he must have hit rock bottom with last night's so-called accommodations, this cruel world must've taken it as an implicit challenge to prove him wrong – He should have known his fall into this infinite, black hole would go on and on and on, that this downward spiral would keep spinning and spinning and spinning…

He hadn't been able to find a better spot to sleep, not here, in this area that was completely foreign and opaque to him, and if he'd brought enough money with him to rent a room in a hotel, he would've done so yesterday. And even _if_ he had the cash, what should he do if someone asked him what he was doing here all alone?

Actually, he didn't have a clue how much a night in a hotel would cost – he had been standing in front of one for a while, wondering what it would be like to step inside, but the moment it seemed like someone was coming to address him, he shied away.

Even if he had been willing to explain himself, he couldn't have done it; He was lost to his leaden speechlessness.

Before coming here, he had tried a parking lot and a train station, but he had no luck – Both times, he had been found by a security guard, and he couldn't say which experience had been worse, the brusqueness and lack of empathy with which he had been thrown out of the parking deck with a few "colorful" words thrown after him, or the man from the train station, who had planned to drag him away, intending to call the police and hand him over.

He escaped the guards both times – just the initial, sudden, fast movement was enough to send him back to the battlefield, facing that colossus of red flesh, its tentacles of light snatching at him at the speed of a bullet, just one particularly loud noise, and he'd be back in EVA 01, fighting for his life –

If he tried to think of how he had left that place and wound up here, his memory gave him no answer – The only clear thought in his head had been "Away from here!", his innermost filled to the brim with the gruesome images of the battle that were bubbling up like the carbon dioxide in a bottle of coke that had been viciously kicked across the room, bursting under the sudden pressure from the inside, and you could very well imagine his mind in the role of the bottle, all, that was left were the fear, the pain and the endless tears, his complete and utter inability to cope with being immediately responsible for two other lives, for everything that might have happened…

He completely lost himself, and when he found himself again, he was here, curled up in this wretched hole.

Around him were numerous bins and bags filled with garbage; There was a nauseating stench, but he was far too worn out to search for another place to stay.

Actually, this might be exactly where he was supposed to be, what was he, if not just another piece of useless garbage that not even his own father considered worth his time.

He couldn't stop his trembling; In the silent darkness, the fear kept reverberating through his being as if some metaphysical little homunculi somewhere in his cerebral gyri had forgotten to turn it off, and the thin layers of cardboard and cloth weren't enough to keep the cold of the night from creeping into the pathetic shell of his being.

He almost couldn't believe this despair, it just wouldn't dissipate, as if something in his inner clockworks had just gotten stuck in this state, permanently crushed by the angel's tentacles and the thundering stomps of the EVA.

That battle had very much _done him_ _in_ , left him hollowed out – that he had even needed this long to arrive at this conclusion, that he hadn't been able to do that until now was all proof he'd ever need of that, and of another truth he had finally arrived at: That he was afraid to have lost a part of him that he would never get back.

* * *

_"Today, we could finally see the sun again, even if it was still a mostly cloudy day._

_Other than that there is nothing more worth mentioning."_

* * *

A method that was much more effective at putting as many kilometers as possible between himself and Misato than simple running could ever be was, as it turned out, to simply board a bus.

The particular bus that Shinji had taken eventually dropped him off somewhere in the mountains that surrounded Neo-Tokyo-3.

It might as well be the very same mountain where the battle took place more than a week ago – he no longer cared.

He just continued walking, all the way across the landscape, wherever his feet would carry him.

It was all the same to him.

He just kept marching forward, his head downcast, taking his time.

Idleness was a luxury that those without goal or purpose could very well allow themselves.

The sky was blue, the birds were chirping, but it didn't matter to him in the slightest;

Nothing really impressed him: Idyllic country roads, shining, clear lakes, enormous fields full of vibrant sunflowers.

The sun polished all of nature to shine in its brightest colors, so that one may have felt like they had just stepped into one of Van Gogh's paintings, not just because of the flowers.

But the scenery lacked the fast strokes of the brush, the menacing, washed-out elements – But Shinji's mind took care of inserting these on its own, unable to find joy even when surrounded by such splendor.

What he _did_ readily stop for were the daunting mountains of his homeland, with their woods, their terraced cliffs and their unforgiving, icy winds that chased clouds and mist past them.

Tokyo-3 could be seen from up here, where the distance alone reduced the fortress city to a small, silver spot surrounded by ancient stone that only served to demonstrate him how insignificant and small he really was.

And those same winds played with the boy's hair as his deep blue eyes scanned the scenery devoid of any hopes or expectations.

With his hair in motion, he looked more like the fragile, delicate being he really was.

Shinji silently dedicated quite some time just to standing there, right next to the abyss, on the wrong side of the fence at the very edge of the rock, where a particularly strong gust of wind or even a single, clumsy movement would be enough for him to plummet into oblivion.

He couldn't think of a single, convincing reason to keep his distance from the precipice…

(One step forward)

…but neither did he feel particularly compelled to jump.

(One step backwards)

Or maybe he was just too much of a coward to go through with it.

(So, he sat down on that very spot and remained there for what must have been half an eternity, unable to make the final step.)

* * *

"He's only fourteen… Just how is he supposed to cope with having to shoulder the literal weight of the world?"

"He has to. As a matter of fact, only children his age can be used as pilots for the Evangelions… Has Shinji-kun phoned you or done anything else to contact you?"

"MhMh…" Misato replied, sullenly leaning against the wall while her blonde coworker went through the First Child's examination results on the monitors before her nose, while the girl herself, currently naked save for simple, white panties and a mountain load of bandages, was being subjected to an extensive screening.

"You haven't heard from him at all?" Dr. Akagi prodded as she scribbled down something pertaining to this week's dose of Rei's medication onto a piece of paper lying right next to her mouse pad

"No, not at all. And I don't think he's ever come back, either…"

"So what do you plan to do about that?"

"Nothing at all." Misato admitted in resignation. "It's probably for the best if he doesn't return…"

"Why do you say that…?"

Misato proceeded to detail that one, fateful, and very much failed conversation between Shinji and herself.

"…and then, I realized that he's just a child. It's only natural that it's all too much for him, it's only natural that he doesn't follow our every order… We're expecting him to… _function_ however we want to, and, we _have_ to, I mean, all of our lives are at stake, but Shinji isn't an _automaton_ that we can just turn on whenever we feel like it, that we expect to "perform flawlessly"… You should have seen that, just how… how _wrong_ it was…

There he goes and tells me to my face that he doesn't care whether he lives or dies… with a _smile_ on his face, but it was very apparent that he was at the end of his tether… and I hardly made it any better…"

Misato sighed.

"I see." The scientist glanced at her second monitor.

"We shouldn't ask him to do something that causes him this much pain…" Misato concluded. "It will destroy him."

"But… we _do_ need pilots."

Misato didn't quite know what to reply to this.

* * *

"DADADADADADA!"

"AAAAHHH"

"Captain, you're hurt!"

"Go on without me, Aida!"

"But… I can't just leave you here, Sir! I'll stay at your side!"

"That was an order!"

"OUCH!"

What might have sounded like an epic battle was the work of a single schoolboy who was playing all the roles himself, only aided by a fairly realistic plastic riffle and clothes covered in a camouflage pattern. But right now, he was allowing himself a little rest after his stunning performance of punching himself in the face.

From his point of view on the ground, it seemed as if both the steadily darkened evening sky and the orange-ish clouds travelling across it were surrounded by a frame formed by the individual spikes of the high grass surrounding him, which some of them protruding into the "picture".

However, the moment that he sat up, presumably to continue his adorable little war games in some shape or form, he became aware of a solitary boy who was wandering down a nearby dirt track.

Wait a second, that school uniform, that haircut, that posture and the ostensibly depressed state it implied…

Hadn't he seen him somewhere before?

"Hey, Ikari!"

And sure enough, the other boy stopped and turned to face Kensuke, visibly surprised.

He hadn't expected to see any familiar faces in this kind of place, much less to be called by his name – As a matter of fact, Kensuke's was the first remotely familiar face he had seen in the last two days.

* * *

In the time the two boys had needed to make their way to the spot where Kensuke had pitched his tent, the night had caught up to them, along with the cold that tended to follow its every step, presenting Kensuke with a chance to demonstrate some special American-boy-scout flint stone trick to ignite a small campfire to chase the cold and the dark away.

Shinji hadn't disclosed what he was doing here, but shook his head at Kensuke's question as to whether he was being expected anywhere, silently agreeing to follow the military otaku and allowing him to wrap him in his jacket.

It was only when he felt the green and brown piece of clothing covering his skin that he became aware that his arms and fingers had grown numb from the cold, having been exposed to the mountain's freezing winds in nothing but his thin, short-sleeved school uniform.

Eternal summer or not, every summer had its cooler, rainier days, and with the absence of seasons, the influence of the increasing altitude could be felt all the more.

While he hadn't managed to kick off a conversation on the way to the tent, Kensuke decided to use the cozy atmosphere around the campfire for yet another try, for he had something to say that had been needing to be said for quite a while now, even if a certain friend of his had not yet managed to swallow his stubborn pride to a sufficient degree: "Touji is really sorry that he beat you up. In the end, he got scolded by his little sister of all people! She said that you and your robot saved our lives. Must be quite embarrassing to get scolded by an elementary school student, right?" Kensuke reported, poking around in the fire with a wooden stick.

Unfortunately, he was forced to conclude that striking up a conversation with the involuntary EVA pilot was a daunting task – That last battle must have affected him profoundly, which meant that the entire robot business – as much as it enticed his curiosity – was probably off the menu.

So, Kensuke tried something else: "I like coming here at night, when those cicadas don't make such a ruckus. Until recently, it used to be bearable during the day as well, but lately, those things have been mating like rabbits…"

Even Kensuke himself was actually a little startled when Shinji actually replied, speaking for the first time in days: "Misato-san says… that it's a sign that the ecosystem is slowly recovering…"

Kensuke grinned.

Yet another successfully accomplished mission for his list of achievements. And Shinji had even steered the conversation back to the more interesting topics, all by himself.

"Misato-san, you say? Man, I'm really envious. You get to live with such a gorgeous lady, and on top of that, you get to pilot the Evangelion! If I could do that only once, my heart would be content… I'd show these monsters who's boss!" Kensuke gushed, accentuating his fantasies with a few gestures of high entertainment value.

But Shinji had a significantly more disenchanted view of his job: "Be glad that you don't have to. Your mother would be worried…"

"I don't think so. I don't even have one. I'm the same as you."

That prompted the first visible reaction is the Third Child's face. He even straightened himself up, properly looking his companion in the eyes for once.

But before Shinji could ask how Kensuke had known this – maybe he had deduced it from the fact that he was basically living with his superior, or perhaps he could tell from the way he'd said that last sentence? – the latter announced that their dinner must be ready by now, and the two of them had their meal together.

Apparently, Shinji liked it; in any case, he complimented the food with a few sparse words and apologized for imposing on Kensuke.

It was probably a positive sign that he was the one to start their next conversation once they had retreated into the tent and hidden away under their blankets:

"Do you do this kind of thing often?"

"Yeah, sort of." Kensuke admitted.

"Is that supposed to be training for some sort of guerilla-warfare?"

"With a plastic gun? Not really. I just do this for fun."

One step forward…

* * *

…and one step back.

The sun didn't grant the next morning as much vibrant colors as the last one – Or who knows, maybe the sun was secretly doing its best and shining as brightly as it could, it's not like there was any way to prove the opposite with these thick layers of mist in the way.

But the singing of the early birds wasn't the only sound to greet the dawning of the next day; What awakened Kensuke from his slumber were the steps of a nearing group of people.

Alarmed by their sounds, he quickly put on his glasses and moved over to the entrance of the tent, ready to face the newcomers.

He much preferred to reveal himself by his own choice, with the safety of the tent behind his back to them being the ones to pull the fabric of the entrance aside and "catch" him in a small enclosed space.

But as soon as the military otaku took a glance outside, it became apparent that his "strategy" didn't matter one way or another – he already had been surrounded to begin with.

In each of the four directions, there was one well-built man in a black suit and dark sunglasses, led by a woman who was standing directly in front of the tent.

She, too, was wearing sunglasses and black clothes, in her case, a blazer and a tube-like skirt that ended just above her knees.

Kensuke knew enough about this kind of things to recognize them as trained security personnel at first glance.

Normally, this would have instantly activated his inner fan boy and bombarded them with questions, excited to actually meet people like that in real life, but today, he knew that there was only one possible reason for them to be here…

The Third Child.

And with that being the case, this lady and her companions meant trouble before anything else, as impressed as Kensuke was to find a woman working in such a job.

Now, one may have wrongly gotten the impression that he was currently being presented with a nice view, considering that he had just crawled out of a tent to find a woman in a short skirt looking down at him, but she was wearing rather opaque, black stockings and high, black boot without any heels to hinder her.

She had long, jet black hair that was bound into a high ponytail on the back of her head, and it would have been wrong to say that she didn't possess above-average physical beauty, but she completely lacked any sort of aura of attractiveness or magnetic charisma; Yes, she wasn't ugly, but there was nothing about her looks, posture or gestures inviting you to find that out and make your eyes linger. You would only have noticed her beauty if you were looking for it, if you used your fantasy to fill in what the nondescript cut of her clothes wouldn't reveal to you.

She wasn't a drool-inducing diva like Misato where your first or second association would be the word "Hot!", but more of a small light.

"Are you… Ikari Shinji-kun?"

The sentence sounded experienced, matter-of-factly and businesslike, like you'd expect it of a computer, or well, a professional, but there had been that strange pause in her speech, as if it cost her some effort to bring herself to use the boy's name.

Kensuke was, at first, a little stunned by all this.

"No, I'm… I'm Aida Kensuke, a classmate of his… b-but he's here. Wait a moment, I'll go get him…"

Since he wanted to avoid being accused trying any sort of tricks by these 'Gentlemen' (All that trouble after last week's incident had been more than enough for him and he didn't feel like getting arrested or anything) he slipped back inside his tent as swiftly as he could – but in the end, he might as well have spared himself the trouble: The spot that, until recently, had been occupied by a certain EVA pilot was now filled with various items that had been lying around in the tent, arranged under a blanket by the missing pilot himself so that his disappearance wouldn't become apparent right away.

* * *

Touji heard the story the next morning, just after arriving in his classroom.

"And you would have told them where he is? Just like that?" Touji bristled at Kensuke's account of the events.

"That's easy for you to say, but those were pros from NERV's security section. They are… trained in close combat."

_"Don't you have any balls at all?"_

A group of girls in the background expressed their disapproval at Touji's choice of words.

"Only a fool would fight when they cannot win. My balls have nothing to do with it. If he'd still been there, they would have found out one way or another, and then they'd arrest me, too. I don't know about you, but being put through the meat grinder _once_ was more than enough for me…"

"Still, I wonder what the hell he was doing there to have those security gorillas chasing after him…"

"He probably ran away." Kensuke speculated. "He didn't explicitly say so, but given all that happened, it's the most obvious conclusion…"

"Damn it!" Touji slammed his first onto his desk. "Just what is he _thinking_!"

He sounded furious, but his anger wasn't directed at Shinji and Kensuke as much as at himself and own contributions to the current state of affairs; He couldn't stop his worry from seeping through.

* * *

Kensuke and the security personnel might still have found Shinji in that tent if he hadn't woken up a little earlier through pure coincidence; Shinji himself couldn't quite say why exactly he had stolen off on his own.

He had been offered warmth and security and kindness, all the things he had been missing and needing so much after the last battle.

But was that so unusual of a beginning? It had been the same with Misato, she had only bothered to be nice at first, but then, sooner or later, came the demands or at least the questions.

Questions that he hadn't felt like answering, both right now and just after the battle, because he was so very ashamed of the truth.

It was quite possible that Kensuke would've woken up, stretched himself a little and the immediately proceeded to ask a question that would have pressured Shinji, even without meaning to, something amongst the lines of casually asking what he was doing here and whether he wasn't missing any of his 'uber cool pilot training'.

So far, the other boy had always been kind to Shinji and he was sure that he meant well, but his enthusiasm pertaining to that whole EVA thing only served to feed Shinji's uncertainty.

He didn't want anything to do with it anymore, and he had suffered so much in that horrid biomechanical contraption that any praising of its alleged "coolness" was nothing but scoff to his ears, and he had to remind himself that it hadn't been Kensuke's intention to deride him.

Also, he wondered if the military otaku would even talk to him if he didn't happen to be that thing's pilot.

Probably not.

It wasn't as if there was anything about Shinji himself that would be worth it.

Before he had become an EVA pilot… no one had ever paid him any heed at all.

His teacher didn't count, after all, he'd gotten a big, fat payroll from his father for bothering with him.

Even if he had stayed, Kensuke probably would have lost interest in him quickly enough as soon as he noticed that Shinji wasn't the cool superhero he probably believed him to be.

And he no longer _was_ an EVA pilot, anyway.

He couldn't stand that fear and that uncertainty.

So, he ran away.

So, he kept meandering across the mountainside.

* * *

Shinji's long, aimless roaming eventually led him to a small source, where cool, clear water gushed out of the mountain in the middle of the forest.

It had to be an absolute coincidence; After fleeing Kensuke's tent, he had even given up on following any sort of ways or paths, and simply followed his nose regardless of what lay in front of it.

It was less surprising that he had wound up in the middle of a forest, which was, according to what his teacher always told him, supposed to be a place that was filled to the brim with many diverse life forms – For all Shinji cared, he might just as well be walking through a wide, white salt desert devoid of any distinguishing features;

There was nothing here at all that meant anything to him, nothing that was enough to prompt any kind of real reaction from him, beyond reminding him of his own insignificance, much like the mountains they were growing on.

But at least they provided him with some fresh oxygen.

He had stopped once or twice to deeply inhale the pure forest air, but it hadn't brought him much of a lasting comfort.

It was little surprising, then, that not even happening across that little source managed to make his expression change, but he did stop for what he intended to be a short rest.

His feet were sore and ached from all the running, and this was a nice opportunity to remove his shoes and did them into some cold water to alleviate that.

The temperature was unpleasant at first, but quite refreshing and invigorating after a few instants of getting used to it.

He took some of the water and used it to wash his face.

It may still have been misty and cool in the morning, but by now, the sun was back to its usual merciless bombardment, and now that the rainclouds that has obscured it for the past week had fully dissipated, the heat of the eternal summer could be felt at full strength once again.

The trees may have shielded him from the direct path of the unforgiving rays, but the evaporative heat loss on his face was still very welcome.

Since he was in the middle of nowhere anyway, he let himself be tempted to stay and observe for a while, to watch as the water broke out of the depths of the earth and formed a newborn creek as he soaked his feet in it – He had nothing else to do…at least until he suddenly noticed a red tint in the water. Sure, he had seen a lot of red water in his life, but this wasn't the sea, just a little brook… and the discoloration didn't seem to be starting directly at the source, anyway.

Shinji got the answers to his emerging questions when he saw a few drops of red liquid falling past him.

Perturbed, he turned around – and, to his horror, was forced to conclude that someone had been standing right behind him for quite a while without him noticing.

But that wasn't what made him pale like a piece of paper.

Before him stood something that resembled a woman of eighteen or seventeen years, wearing men's clothes that were far too large, even more disheveled than he was, and – this being the particular detail that made his heartbeat cease for an instant – covered in bloodstains.

Even her face and the cap that covered almost all of her hair were generously splattered with red stains.

The worst, however, was the source of the red droplets, a woman's headless corpse that was being carried by that unbelievable apparition.

And it was currently less than a few centimeters away from Shinji's face.

Absurd giant robots? Okay.

Humongous monsters attacking? Yeah.

All that other surreal stuff? It hadn't killed him yet.

But something this close, this real without the Evangelion's plate armor in between…

Something as _mundane_ as a psychopathic killer…

That was the last straw.

Shinji just started screaming uncontrollably, and recoiled, skidding backwards, even if he had to move into the stream's cold water for that, but before long, he felt something on his back that didn't belong to the opposite back of the little creek, something like a solid, invisible wall, a complete barrier that caused him strange sensations wherever he made contact with it, as if every touch contained something like a call.

The woman nonchalantly dropped the corpse into the brook, leaving its blood to poor into it in a much more direct manner, and raised her head which had been lowered until now, so that Shinji wasn't spared from seeing the murderous leer on her face.

Her strangely familiar face.

Shinji's screaming just grew louder and wilder, he released unprocessed noise from his lungs, began kicking around, and hit the invisible barrier behind him with his fists, still not convinced of its existence.

This was simply far too much… why did it have to be him, why was it always _him_?

He wanted all of this to stop, it was supposed to stop!

He wanted out of here. Why wouldn't all of this just _stop_?

Why couldn't he just wake up to find himself beneath Misato's ceiling, and find out that all of this was just some crazy nightmare, being beaten up at school, the battle, the chew-out that followed, all of this, all of it, one single nightmare!

As far as he could tell, this situation had been far beyond fixing for a long time.

On top of that, this… this thing was now closing in on him, one step or another.

It was only when Shinji was pressed against her wall in panic, and she herself mere centimeters away from where he sat, that she began to speak, providing him with fresh reasons to abuse his vocal cords.

"Divine child." Her lips formed.

{{Ikari Shinji}} was what reverberated inside his head.

He clutched the fabric of his shirt in panic.

It was as if he could hear her speak from the depths of his very being, deep, deep within his innermost, betwixt all the dirt and filth he kept in the repugnant core of all that he was, straight from the festering darkness he was trying to separate himself from.

Just by speaking to him, she forced him to look inside, where he _never_ looked, where he never _wanted_ to look.

Her voice – not just its simple sound, but some abstract, metaphysical essence of it, the sheer substance of the words, accompanied by something subtle and immaterial that resembled the sound of a tuning fork.

Overwhelmed, he pressed his hands against his ears, quickly gave that up, and clasped his head instead, shaking it wildly as he screamed.

He gave up on covering his ears because it had been fruitless; Even then, he could still feel her from within, loud and perfectly clear.

He shrank away from that wall, for it, too, was something of hers, filled with her reverberation, reflected that eldritch sound and passed it on to his very bones and innards from wherever he touched it.

That was the instant when the realization that this being before him could not be human hit him with its full force.

The aura of strength that could be felt heavy in the air, that corona of resonance reminded him of his encounter with the last angel, yet at the same time, he sensed that this was something fundamentally different.

It didn't have the suffocating heaviness of an angel's presence, it felt different, completely different, something stealthier and subtler, and yet much, much mightier;

The greatest contrast was perhaps that she wasn't just emanating her presence in all directions, she was really speaking _to him_ , almost like… like a human would.

Like a human that he knew very well…

And like a human that knew him just as well…

He knew her, he could hear her inside his head, and she was really speaking to him alone, to him in particular.

She had said his name.

His very own name.

How on earth did this …thing know his goddamn name?

He felt like he was about to burst apart, just from sitting this close to where she stood.

{{Ikari Shinji.}} the being repeated.

{{Ikari Shinji, third of the chosen ones.}}

"Wha-wha-what do you want from me?! What did I do?!" he ultimately managed before breaking down in helpless, desperate sobs.

{{I'm sorry.}}

"H-Heh?!"

{{I'm sorry. No mother likes to bring harm to one of her children.}}

"M-Mother?!"

{{But rest assured…}}

She placed her hand in the middle of his face, marking him with the warm, sticky blood that clung to it and, in spite of all his attempts to somehow evade, moved it all the way up to his hairline, where she actually stopped to stroke his head.

Shinji felt the trail of blood she had left on him trickling over and dripping down from his face.

Resting assured was the last thing on his mind right now.

{{Do you see that?}}

She did not have to point at it with her fingers, rather, she somehow _transferred_ that meant the headless corpse that was currently bleeding into the water.

{{I'm doing all of this for you.}}

His heartbeat was frenzied, his breathing fast and loud.

"For… for me?! I haven't seen you before in all of my life!" he wailed. He had already resigned himself to the fact that would most likely lose his life in the next few minutes. He didn't expect to be missed.

"A-And you k-killed someone, too…" he added, in tears.

"Something this horrible… something like this…"

{{What are you afraid of?}} her words came, simultaneously emerging from her lips and the depths of Shinji's spirit.

That was the first time that a trace of actual human emotion, more precisely, surprise became visible on her face, but he couldn't shake off that feeling that it wasn't really her emotion from her own heart, that she was only wearing one of his.

But he was quick to assume that it must have been coming from her and the ringing of her unearthly presence, because the only thing _he_ was feeling right now was abject fear.

That thing before him terrified him enough to leave every ounce of blood in his body frozen solid. And now, she was bending forward to look him in the eye.

Her next sentence sent him into another screaming fit that was only ended when he eventually broke down in sobs – Her sentence, and the uncanny, almost maternal tone that came with it: {{I am only trying to bring about _what you wished for_.}} She whispered close to his ear, either oblivious to his panic or deliberately ignoring it. {{You should be happy.}}

She knelt down next to him and stayed there, regardless of how much he kicked and screamed, how much he tried to push her away, to just get as far away as the narrow room between her and her invisible wall allowed it.

"Why would I want anyone to die?" he cried, his face reddened and awash in tears. "And why me? Why _me_ of all people?"

That was the very question that had been vexing him for a very long time now, in many different contexts. "How does it matter what I wish for? Because I just… happened across this place or- I'm… I'm not… particularly wise or important or-"

"Hehehehe…. Hihihihi…"

She laughed, one abhorrent, eerie snicker barely resembling human vocalizations, but it was easily outshined by the correspondent pendant that manifested directly in Shinji's head, a metallic screech mated with the shrill shriek of chalk scratching down a blackboard that appeared to be scraping against his very soul, refusing to be expressed by any sort of phonetic spelling.

{{Ikari Shinji…}} She pressed her hand to his forehead and distanced herself again, rising to her feet, but never letting go of him, eventually standing there with her fully outstretched arm reaching down to his face. {{You might just be the most important human being in all of creation…}}

Had he finally lost it for good?

He wanted it all to stop…. stop… stop… he couldn't stand any more of this… he couldn't _take_ any more of this… He didn't _want_ any more of this…

{{…and this is why…}}

Her eyes narrowed.

{{…you will have to die now…}}

**_SPLOTCH_ **

Shinji didn't even have the time to shield his face with his arms.

The headshot was followed by several further shots to the center of the mass, riddling the whole torso with enough holes to make a Swiss cheese envious.

The woman, no, the creature collapsed without the slightest resistance, falling right past Shinji, over the corpse she brought with her, landing face down in the waters of the small stream.

As she fell, her cap, now with a new hole in it, came undone, releasing a torrent of long, sky-blue hair to cover her form like a shroud after she had fallen.

It hardly needed saying that Shinji got splattered in her blood.

But that was only one of many reasons for his subsequent scream.

Until now, he had only met a single person with this strange hair color that he'd classified as 'azure blonde' for lack of a better term.

And hadn't this thing's face looked so very familiar…?

No, no, this… this couldn't be, he was just making weird, unhinged associations…

Eventually, what snapped Shinji out of his almost trance-like state of absolute shock was the sound of nearing footsteps.

The shooter.

Of course. The bullets that had probably saved his life had to have come from somewhere.

Hesitantly, he turned his eyes into the direction the steps could be heard from, and his gaze came to meet with four men in black.

The woman walking ahead of them – presumably their leader – was still holding her gun.

It was probably her that he had to thank for the fact that his head was still on his shoulders.

But… these people… they didn't really have any reason to be here in the middle of the forest… and they looked like security personnel.

Like NERV's section two, for example.

They had come for _him_.

"Step away." The gun-toting woman ordered without much emotion.

"E-eh?"

He rose to his feet, his clothes still dripping wet.

"Away from the corpses."

Now, he understood.

He took one step backwards, out of the water.

And another.

And then he turned and ran as fast as he could.

He wanted out of here, away from here, away from all of it, away from NERV and away from that thing, from all the violence and the grotesque absurdities.

* * *

"Asahina-san?"

One of her colleagues turned to face the woman in black an inquiring look.

"…follow him and keep him under close observation, but don't retrieve him yet." Asahina ordered in a businesslike fashion. "I need to clarify this situation with headquarters first. I'll send you reinforcements if necessary."

"Yes, Ma'am."

The four men in black departed.

Their steps quickly vanished into the forest – after all, they had been trained to move without arousing suspicion.

In contrast, their leader let her glance wander to her 'prey' lying in the creek, at first only from the corner of her eyes.

Blue hair.

Then she turned, walked over to the bank of the steam, knelt down there and grabbed the fresher of the two corpses by the shoulder to inspect its face.

In reaction to the sight of it, Asahina's expression went through a series of distinct states, beginning with shock, continuing with wrath, all the way to a thin, cold smile and back to her previous, cool, professional, nondescript expression.

And just as cold and professionally, she took her weapon and emptied it into the being's skull, leaving its face looking like the crater-ridden surface of the moon when she rose up again.

He took her phone from her pocket, but it was only her second call that went back to NERV HQ.

* * *

Shinji kept running until he had long since found his way out of the forest, being forced to slow down by the fact that he was completely out of breath, having forced every cell in his drained, used up body to its outermost limits.

The splatters of blood had found the time to dry on both his clothes and his skin, much like his tears.

Not that the absence of these now brownish stains would have made that much of a difference, he had been wearing that same uniform for god knows how long, and by now, it was swathed in filth. What little money he had taken with himself for the sake of buying provisions had long since run out, and because he had been forced to leave his shoes next to the source, his feet were covered in bruises and scratches.

And now, on top of all that, it was getting dark, and he was out here on his own, with nothing to protect himself from the cold of the night.

He had run away from a place and a life where there was nothing but pain, because there was nothing good at all.

But out here, in the middle of nowhere… he wasn't terribly far from becoming a snack for the rats, he felt like he might just let himself collapse onto the ground and wait patiently for the warmth to seep out of him, to just go belly up here, unseen and forgotten.

Shinji was thoroughly worn down and, frankly spoken, feeling goddamn awful.

He may or may not have let himself sink into the mud if the meadows he had currently been wading through with his trouser legs turned up hadn't been parted by a highway, a sight that awakening a pale glimmer of hope in him, as dim as it may have been.

A highway!

A real, asphalted, marked, illuminated highway.

A road that was bound to lead somewhere.

Walking on the concrete was a lot more comfortable than the ground of the forest or the meadow, as long as he made sure not to step on any of these sharp little stones.

Maybe he would be able to find shelter for the night if he just kept following this road.

He kept walking on and on, but he wasn't passed by a single car.

Later, he came across several orange traffic cones and what looked like the a roadblock minus all the waiting cars, but he wasn't deterred, even if he distantly wondered which this highway was blocked at all.

The single car that was surrounded by further traffic cones at the edge of the street may just have broken down.

But where had its owners gone?

Shinji's journey continued, this time, through a tunnel.

Someone had left their bicycle lying around there, and the resulting image looked desolate beyond words.

But after glancing at it for a short while, even Shinji walked past it and left it behind, continuing his lonesome stride towards the exit of the tunnel.

When he finally traversed it, however, he found a discouraging revelation waiting for him.

With wide eyes, Shinji stared at the road in front of him, or rather, the lack thereof.

On this side of the tunnel, the highway continued for a little, held up by the pillars beneath it, but a few dozens of meters further ahead, two large chunks of it were missing, leaving the middle part between them standing like a little bridge without a proper ending or beginning, defiantly remaining in the landscape for no purpose beyond its own vanity.

Yes, it was just as useless as Shinji himself, and yet, it was there.

As for the Third Child himself, he was standing before an absolute abyss: There was no way forward, nothing at his sides, and nothing to turn back to, either, not anymore.

End of the line.

The most ironic thing was that Shinji could easily conclude just what had cut his path short – The humongous footprints before and after the behind the crushed bridge told him all.

If it had been last month's angel, the repairs would at least have started by now, and the one last week didn't have any feet to speak of, which narrowed the circle of suspects down to a single possible culprit: EVA 01. He must have cut off his own way out back when he charged the angel like a madman.

He couldn't go on any longer.

It was over.

If he really thought about it, this entire little "road trip" had been over the moment it began; How far could he possibly have come, a mere, unknowing child like him, without any goal for him to reach?

Besides… that security lady may have saved his life, but… there was no way they could've possibly found him in the middle of that forest, which implied that they must have been following him for quite a while…

They were probably _still_ following him.

Of course. They had to be.

They needed to know exactly where he was at any time so they could drag him off to stuff him into his Evangelion if one of these monsters should show up.

He never really escaped them, and he should have expected that one child alone wouldn't be capable to escape from such a huge organization…

It had all been for naught.

Shinji felt resignation spreading through his being, but also, terrific wrath directed at his own powerlessness.

He clenched his fists.

" _Enough_! In the end, you're gonna bring me back to Misato-san _anyway_ , aren't you?!"

The moment he turned around, Shinji was forced to narrow his eyes to shield them from the blinding brightness of many lights that appeared mainly from above the tunnel.

Once his eyes had grown accustomed to the brightness, his suspicions were confirmed; There were men in black all around him and the woman from earlier had already pulled out her phone, probably to organize his retrieval.

He let himself be dragged away without uttering a single word.

* * *

"What?!" Misato shouted into her phone, obliviously pouring the contents of her electric kettle straight onto her countertop, missing the cup on instant noodles that had once been the intended target by a notable margin.

PenPen briefly commented it all with an puzzled blink before he continued to waddle his own way.

"You… You're saying they found him?"

* * *

Leaving her kettle where it was, Misato had raced back to NERV headquarters in a frenzy, most likely breaking over a dozen traffic rules in the process.

She didn't care.

She had other worries right now.

Naturally, she _did_ want to see Shinji and make sure that he was all right, but she couldn't have said whether she was really happy about his return. She feared that the entire EVA business was bound to run him into the ground sooner or later, but she wasn't doing him a favor by allowing him to run away from responsibility.

She hadn't even heard about the circumstances of his retrieval yet, but in either case, she concluded that the best way of action would be to ask him what he wanted, straight to his face.

During her trip to headquarters, she kept replaying the words she had prepared for their meeting in her head, over and over again… She had to get to the security wing, where the bullpens were situated.

Cell number 1-0-1, she had been told.

The corridor next to them was narrow and, in Misatos opinion, could have done with better lighting; Not the sort of place she would she would spend extended periods of time in if she could help it, but probably just about right for a prison.

Since she didn't come here often, the numeric designations of the cells were her only orientation – One would think that a cell with a number like '1-0-1' would be easy to find.

Then, a sparkle of hope.

A woman in dark shades, a black blazer and a matching skirt was standing before one of the doors, ostensibly guarding someone or waiting for her superiors.

If that wasn't Shinji's cell behind her, she would at least be able to show her the way.

"Hey you there! Excuse me, but could you please tell me where to find cell 1-0-1?"

The woman only slightly tilted her head in Misato's direction.

"Are you Captain Katsuragi?" she asked, frankly and businesslike, as if her tone was meant to shame Misato for her own, rather informal tone.

The woman in red straightened herself and made an effort to produce a serious expression.

"Yes, I am. I assume that the Third Child is in here?"

The security lady nodded. "He surrendered to us of his own, free will and has been cooperative ever since."

He surrendered? Misato didn't know whether to be worried or relieved.

Of course it wouldn't have been good if he had been dragged here kicking and screaming all the way, but she could also picture the alternative very clearly: Shinji, with his head lowered as usual, and an expression of deep, repressed sorrow on his face, not even bothering to resist because he didn't have the courage, and that image did not make her happy.

"How is he?"

"He's not injured, if that's what you mean. But he could probably do with a bath and a warm meal. But there is something else I am to inform you of."

"…Something… else…?"

"My colleagues and I were able to avert it, but today… there was an attempt on the Third Child's life."

Misato wondered how that woman could state such a thing like it was an everyday occurrence to her. "An… attempt on his life?!"

That wasn't good. That wasn't good at all… Okay, Shinji had survived, but that he was forced to live through something like this on top of everything else…

"Correct." The woman in black confirmed. "I have personally terminated the perpetrator, so there is no reason for further worry."

"Who… who was it?"

"We believe that it was what the media currently refers to as the Tokyo-3-serial killer."

"The serial killer? The one that always does those weird things with the corpses?"

"Correct."

"And you got them? Then you're the one who saved Shinji-kun's life… What's your name?"

"Asahina. Asahina Najiko."

"Then, thank you very much, Asahina-san. Can I see him now?"

"Go ahead. I will be leaving you to your personal space."

As Asahina's steps trailed off in the passageway, Misato took a moment to gather her thoughts and order the words she was planning to say one last time.

She may not have shown it much before Asahina, but she was really not amused, and she wasn't planning on pampering Shinji, either.

But she would ask him what he wanted.

So, she pressed the button that would open the door.

The cell was dark and spacious, with NERVs insignia on one of the walls.

And Shinji was slumped on a little plastic chair and avoided looking at her if he could help it.

"It's been a while."

No comment.

"So, did you gain any great insights from bumming around for three days, Shinji-kun?"

"Dunno."

"They've finished repairing the EVA. Are you going to pilot it… or not?"

Splendid! He had only just returned, and already, it was all about that terrifying purple abomination! If anything, it was just another confirmation that he shouldn't have expected to find anything good in this place.

"You… you're not going to scold me, are you?

…Of course not, after all, it's not like we're related…

If I say that I don't want to pilot Unit One anymore, what will you do?"

"Make Rei do it instead."

Of course. Rei.

"It seems unrealistic for you to force it all on her…"

Then again, hadn't his father almost gone through with it already?

The thought that that poor, injured girl would have to shoulder all of these horrible battles on her own did make him feel a sting somewhere in his heart.

"…but don't worry, I'll pilot it."

"But you don't really want to, right?"

"Of course not. I'm not cut out for it, either. But that doesn't matter, does it? It's not like anyone actually cares what I think. I have to pilot the EVA, that's the only reason my father called me here to begin with… So who cares? I'll do it, if that's what everyone expects of me…"

After all, they had just gone through the trouble of dragging him back here. There was no way that they were just going to let him go, right? The point of this whole speech was most likely to get a "yes" out of him that sounded honest enough to them.

He had already agreed to do as they say, so what else did they want?

They couldn't honestly expect him to _enjoy_ or _want_ the ordeals they planned to push him through!

"Yeah, but aside from all that, what do _you_ want?"

"I… I just don't think that I can do this…" Shinji admitted. "And I don't think any of you really believe that, either…"

It was a simple, unshakeable truth that he wasn't any sort of valiant superhero with nerves of steel. He couldn't just turn off his fears by pressing a button, and much less did he understand why he of all people had to be chosen for this. His father may have said that he was the only one who could do it, but… no, he could not. He wasn't capable of handling all this in the _least._ To name an example, both Touji and Kensuke could be said to have significantly more heroic personalities than he did, not that he would wish any of this horrible suffering on them.

But it couldn't be helped.

It was him they asked this of, it was him whom they forced into this.

"…but Ayanami is injured, and this is why you, my father, and Ritsuko-san want me to-"

Misato had enough. Why couldn't that boy give her a single straight, honest answer?

 _"Don't always bend yourself to what you think others want!"_ she shouted, furious, but very much tinted with desperation.

"Don't you get it? _We have no use for unwilling pilots!_ "

Whether you want to pilot the EVA or not is something that only you can decide. If you don't want to, no one's going to stop you from leaving! Forget everything about us and the EVAs, and just go back where you came from! It's your choice."

After leaving him with those words, she immediately shut the door without leaving him any chance for further questions or comments.

Shinji stared helplessly into the dark. He had nothing to hold on to, nothing to show him the way, no way to tell what he was supposed to do.

She just left him hanging in thin air.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) I couldn't quite decide what version of Shinji's "retrieval" to use. On the one hand, I'm one of Kensuke's few fans and really missed the tent scene from episode 4, but on the other hand, the "end of the road"-scene from Rebuild was such a powerful visual metaphor, and the way he "surrenders" there perfectly encapsulates one of the main points of that particular part of the story, his powerlessness before those huge organizations… So I looked for a way to include both.
> 
> (2) A "Fugue" is a baroque type of music, characterized by increased repetitions of a few motifs – Like anything baroque, they were internally strictly ordered, but since I checked some of them out, out of curiosity after hearing so much about it in school, I've always thought that the combination of the many melodies at times sounds increasingly chaotic and intense (depending on the exact piece), like someone slowly going mad… maybe it's just my layman's ears that aren't accustomed to classical music. You may have heard of Beethoven's Great Fugue. Bach, Mozart and various Baroque artists also made some cool ones... But the allusions to a number of similar terms are, of course, fully intentional. As is the invocation of the common associations to the word "baroque". And yes, it comes from the latin word for "flight" or "escape."
> 
> (3) So yeah, there's Asahina's introduction and sufficient hints at all you need to know about her… have fun speculating.
> 
> (4) For clarification, the "invisible wall" mentioned in the middle part was escaped-experiment-chans AT-Field. Shinji just didn't recognize it as such.
> 
> (5) Shouldn't Shinji's neck hurt from the way he's always staring downwards? I only really noticed how much he does that (especially in the prologue arc) once I tried to get his body language written down. And was his Japanese voice always this… acoustic equivalent of a "please-hug-me"-sign? *gives Shinji a huge teddy bear and hugs both him and the teddy* So, and now, smile a little, will ya? Looking at you like this hurts my freakin' soul…
> 
> (6) So much for "Evangelion" meets "Catcher in the Rye". Now, onto the next chapter! Will he stay or will he go? And will he recover? This and more will be revealed in the next chapter, 10: [Home at last]


	11. 10: [Home at last]

_You don't really wanna stay_

_But you don't really wanna go_

_-Katy Perry, 'Hot 'n Cold'_

* * *

"You _do_ know that the Third Child will be leaving Neo-Tokyo-3 today, right?"

"This is why we have to reconfigure Unit One for Rei as soon as possible." Ikari replied matter-of-factly. His voice sounded astonishingly nonchalant considering that this was his own son they were talking about, but Dr. Akagi had known him long enough to notice that his posture seemed marginally stiffer and more tense than usual.

The two of them were traversing one of NERVs many escalators, accompanied by Rei herself, who was still tightly wrapped in bandages.

"But…-"

"Regardless of what happened with Unit Zero last time, we need to continue with Unit One right away."

Dr. Akagi snuck a glance at the girl in question. She still looked battered, but in spite of the fact that her future was being decided right in front of her, there was not a single muscle moving in her face.

"The Second Child is still in Germany, and according to the last report from the Marduk-Institute, the Fourth Child has yet to be found."

That was one big, fat lie – The institute did not exist and the Fourth Child was already stationed in Bethany Base – But thanks to the situation with the Third Angel, she would have to stay there for now, at least until he found a convenient opportunity to sabotage the projects that were being carried out there.

Even if her information was incorrect, Dr. Akagi's conclusion was still very valid: "And that means that we currently don't have a replacement for the Third Child. And that's not our only worry. The escaped test subject was briefly caught, but it escaped on the way here… At least we can now be certain that it was indeed acting as the 'serial killer'… and it was wearing clothes. That's a human concept. How it could possibly understand that baffles me. I've come to think that something must have… taken over the clone and modified it for its own purpose…"

"That would explain why shooting it didn't work. But it raises much more questions than it answers."

"I'm working on it. But what should we do about that woman? If she saw this, then…"

"Then she has probably already alerted the old men, yes. But they won't take action until they have solid evidence. If we can dispose of the problem before they can snoop around any further, this should be of little consequence."

"If she _is_ going to snoop around, wouldn't it be better to eliminate her?"

"She knows that she can't fool us with hair dye and colored lenses, and the old men know that they can only provoke us so much. They probably have another spy. That woman is only a decoy."

"Another spy, you say…?"

* * *

The Third Child himself was already sitting in the car that was supposed to take him to the train station and waited for the security personnel to finish pulling his security card through the shredder.

His fingers were clawed into the fabric of his trousers.

He had firmly decided that he was going to leave.

This time for real. He would go back to his old teacher's place where there would be no more horrifying battles and no more torturous agony. So why did he feel this uncertainty raising through his being?

Somehow, he felt like he was about to miss or to lose something, as if he were wasting a chance…

He would never see any of them ever again… Touji, Kensuke, his Father, Dr. Akagi, Ayanami, Misato… oh, Misato.

He knew that she had no reason to come and see him now that he had decided to leave, but the way she had just left had upset him enough to prevent him from finding any rest during the last night, though having to spend it in a bullpen did not help.

He just didn't want them to… part on bad terms.

Yesterday he felt that she was being unfair to her, but now that he had time to think about what it meant to never see her again, he couldn't help but remember that she _did_ try to offer him something like a home.

It was his fault that it hadn't worked out. Because he simply wasn't the strong-willed, heroic kind of person that was suited for such things.

He was the useless piece of dirt that had fled with his tail between his legs, and he was about to do it again, even after he had decided that he wouldn't run away ever again…

Damn. Why was he beginning to feel bad for leaving now? He shouldn't have to, right? He had been forced to be here, and now, they were finally letting him go…

Maybe because useless people like him _deserved_ to feel bad.

It wasn't like he was good enough to stay here, anyway.

He would be unable to bear it one way or another.

The card was shredded, the one who had shredded it boarded the car, and they departed.

The noise from the car wasn't enough to drown out the doubts germinating in his head.

To shut them up, he allowed himself one more question, one last step backwards: "…Where is Misato-san? I would… like to say goodbye…"

"You are no longer a member of NERV, so we can't tell you anything."

He did not protest any further. Yes, there was this sense of disappointment, but he probably deserved it. It was him who had chosen to leave this all behind him.

His journey continued, and soon, they reached the train station.

Shinji recognized it, the power pole, the roofing, everything: It was the same train station he had arrived at, that fateful day when his father sent him that letter.

His father… He probably wasn't going to see him ever again.

Their work at NERV had been the only thing they'd had in common.

The car was parked, and one of the security workers opened the door for him.

But then, something that he wouldn't have expected in a thousand years took place right there and then:

"Ikari, here's all the stuff you forgot at school!"

The bag that was thrown at him from the side was precisely aimed, but Shinji still only barely managed to catch it.

Once he had it firm in his hands, he followed its trajectory with his eyes and saw the impossible.

Touji and Kensuke.

For a few moments, Shinji just stood there, completely speechless.

After he'd caused those two so much hardship, they had actually taken the trouble to come all the way here, solely to bid _him_ farewell?

They had come… because of _him_?

He didn't think that anyone would as much as notice his departure, much less that he was in any way worth being missed, but here they were.

In flesh, blood and three dimensions.

"Uh, could I please have a moment to say goodbye?" Shinji asked quietly, hoping that the answer would be 'Yes'. He wouldn't like to walk right past them after they had bothered to come all the way.

One of the men in black nodded.

Tentatively, Shinji brought himself to walk over to them, no knowing what to say. The bag, right, the bag! He should probably thank them for the bag.

"Uh… thank you…" he managed.

Again, it was silent save for the constant chirping in the background.

The tall, tracksuit-wearing boy, however, had begun to tense up a little.

But fortunately, he had Kensuke with him: "Come on, say it!" he urged, giving his friend the little push he couldn't give himself – in the most literal form of a small nudge.

Touji stood up straight and looked Shinji in the eye, his expression suddenly serious.

"Ikari, I'm sorry for beating you up. As compensation, I want you to punch _me_ now."

"B-but I can't do such a thing…" Shinji replied, notably uncertain.

He was pretty much overwhelmed by all this.

"I insist on it. I won't be satisfied otherwise."

"Come on, just punch him already so he shuts up." Kensuke added, his smile confirming that doing this would be okay.

"B-but…"

"Hurry up!" Touji demanded, ostensibly serious about what he just said. "You don't have all day!"

As a matter of fact, the men in black were already checking their watches.

"A-Alright, but only once…" Shinji finally yielded.

"Then come on! Do it already!"

Now sufficiently convinced to somehow go through with this, Shinji put down his bag and aimed his blow.

"WAIT! _Don't you dare hold back_!"

All right, if he… kept saying it like that… After all that had already happened between them, Shinji didn't want to disappoint him any further, and so, he moved to strike him, this time for real.

OUCH.

That scrawny little Ikari boy was a lot stronger than he looked.

Even Shinji himself seemed a little nonplussed about the effect of his punch.

"Ouch, that hit home." Kensuke commented.

Both of them smiled at Shinji once more.

And then, that silence was back.

Things to talk about, things to talk about…

"Uh, how did you know…"

"What train station you would be departing from?" Kensuke offered. "It was a hunch. We've seen dozens of classmates of lately…"

That did leave an affected expression on Shinji's face.

"Since you're leaving, the two of us will also have to leave this city someday." Touji stated, his voice void of the anger or disappointment that Shinji had been expecting ever since the word 'evacuation' had been mentioned. But it was his next sentence that turned all of Shinji's expectations on their heads, shocking him to his very core: "…but we don't have the right to judge you for that. We saw you suffering inside the EVA… And if anyone blames you, I'll kick their ass!" Touji announced, brandishing his fist.

Shinji felt his hands trembling.

This… this was wrong.

It was just wrong, as a matter of principle!

Touji's little sister had been injured because of his incompetence…

Those two would probably be forced to part with each other and have to watch as their friends scattered across the map…

They shouldn't be …nice to him, or talk about _not having the right_ to judge him or anything…

They weren't supposed to have come at all, not for someone as worthless as him…

This… just wasn't right…

"Don't make such a face." Touji suggested.

"Yeah, cheer up!" Kensuke agreed. "And hang in there."

Shinji was just about to break down in tears.

He didn't deserve this, not any of it, not at all.

"I…"

"Time's up." The security worker behind him declared, grabbing him by the shoulder to lead him to the train.

Away from here, away from these two, away from his duties…

The injustice of it all reverberated in his head, it just wouldn't stop, growing louder and louder, the certainty that he did not deserve this.

He lowered his head and grabbed his bag.

Wrong, wrong, wrong, all of it, wrong…

The two even followed after him to observe as the men in black lead him to the train platform…

It was just plain wrong!

"I'm the one who deserves to be punched!" he called out to the two of them, straining against the hold of the security personnel, squeezing himself back through to face his now former classmates.

His tears had finally refused to be held back any longer.

"I'm a coward! A shirker! Dishonest… and weak…"

And then, he let himself be dragged away, leaving two visible shocked boys.

They hadn't expected… hadn't known just how deeply all of this had troubled their newest friend…

* * *

Meanwhile, back in NERV headquarters, Eva 01 was currently being reconfigured.

Misato and Dr. Akagi once again stood on that one bridge where they once tried to persuade Shinji to board the violet titan for the first time.

"He left." was Dr. Akagi's laconic summary of the most recent developments. "Do you still think that this is for the best?"

"You said it yourself…" Misato stated with an unmistakable tinge of sadness to her voice. "The closer we come to each other, the more we hurt each other… like two hedgehogs."

Yes, beyond the whole ethical question and the boy's age, the boy had simply grown on her and she felt compelled to be there for him and to help him. She had suffered a neglectful father herself and wanted to provide him the support she never had.

But she was not the kind of support that he needed.

So far, she had only succeeded in making everything worse.

So, it was probably for the best to let him go.

Him, that boy who just said yes to everything and allowed himself to be subjected to just about anything, who just clung to what others told him no matter how bitterly unhappy that made him.

It was just beyond him – He was flat out incapable to say what he really wanted or what he really wished for. He probably didn't even _know_ what he wanted or wished for.

But it was always much easier to recognize a problem than to solve it, it was much easier to say what you _didn't_ want than to figure out what you want, it was simpler to cease doing something than to start with it.

This complete refusal… was probably the only way in which a boy who could not bring himself to make an honest complaint to make others aware of the pain in his heart, the only way in which he could rebel like any other kid his age.

Yes.

"…but on the other hand, I've realized… that he can't express his feelings in any other way…"

* * *

So there it was.

The train.

It came to a halt and opened its doors, the one last threshold Shinji would have to cross for all of this to be over.

He stood right before it, with his head lowered and his bag held in front of his body.

All he needed to do was to make one single step forward.

One single step through this doorframe and everything would go back to the way it was.

Just one single step, and he would be rid of them forever, the fear, the battles, the pain…

One single step, and he would never see them again... Misato… Touji… Kensuke… Dr. Akagi… Ayanami Rei… his father…

Just one single step, and he would finally have escaped this nightmarish place…

Except… not _everything_ had been painful…

( _"Hang in there."_ )

On this side of the threshold, there were a thousand and one sources of pain and suffering waiting for him, and on the other, not a single source of happiness.

* * *

Even after she had squeezed the last bit of juice out of her accelerator, in spite of all the red traffic lights she ignored, even if she only barely avoided smashing her car into two certain boys in her attempts to park it as far as possible, by the time Misato arrived at the train station, the train that her young ward was supposed to board was long gone.

She was too late.

And to be honest, she should have saved herself the trouble of coming all the way here to begin with – In the end, all she could have accomplished was to force him into yet another situation he did not want to be in.

Giving up entirely, Misato let out a deep, resigned sigh and gave the air molecules in front of her face a depressed look.

Most likely, it just hadn't been meant to be to begin with…

She was already turning to leave when she noticed something out of the corner of her eye – a solitary figure standing on the platform.

She couldn't believe it.

She wouldn't have expected this from him – unjustly, as she was now forced to concede.

He stood there with his eyes downcast, perhaps dejected or disappointed with himself for his inability to go through with his decision and make that one last step.

But when he noticed her, his eyes grew wide.

She… she had come.

Even though she wasn't supposed to have anything to do with him anymore, now that she was no longer his superior.

She had come, just how he had secretly hoped somewhere deep inside.

The train was gone and she was here.

For half an eternity, the two of them stared each other in the eyes, struggling to believe what their own eyes showed then because it broke multiple laws of their inner universes.

She looked at him, who had stayed even though he didn't have to, and he looked at her, who had come here without having any reason to do so.

Or rather, there was exactly one reason why Misato could have come here:

Because of him.

Just because of him.

Because of him as a person.

All this time.

All this time, they had tried to get closer to each other by giving the other minute hints, to defy one another in the futile hope that the other would be able to deduce the contents of their own heart just from that, when they could simply have shown their true feelings to each other all along.

Shinji still didn't believe that he had what it takes to save the world, or that anything about him was worthy of love. But if he had managed to leave a mark on the hearts of just one or two people, if Misato and him really were more than just coworkers, and if Touji and Kensuke were interested in just a little bit more than his position as an EVA pilot…

If they had really come because of _him_ alone…

Then he may just begin to allow himself a little bit more hope than he did the day before.

Yes, they exist, these small moments where we stop lying to ourselves.

Most of the time, they ended just as quickly as they came, but they were sweeter then honey.

And so, it was Shinji of all people whose expression of bewilderment first melted into a smile as he found just the right words for the first time in his life: "…Here I am…"

"Welcome home."

* * *

_"The Third Child's poor condition could, first and foremost, be attributed to his mental and physical exhaustion. He was given a few days of leave and has since made a complete recovery. There are no further problems."_

Misato held her sigh back until she had turned the voice recorder off and put it down, opening the uppermost drawer in her desk in the meantime, which she soon made the device disappear into, resisting the urge to throw it against a wall or at least to stuff it in the already cramped trash bin – she always kept imagining just how he would react if he ever found any of this, and she could picture it rather well now that the most recent events had provided her with an ample supply of inspiration. Penning these surveillance reports always felt like a breach of trust to her, and she had little doubt that he would see it the same way, frequently catching herself being deliberately half-hearted in her documentation of his state and his activities, as if to diminish her sin.

Nonetheless, the regulations made their demands – what she tried to convince herself of was: This was a condition she had to meet to be able to help him at all, a job that would be done by someone else, someone less benevolent, if she didn't take it upon herself.

But to find this, to see this, and to think what he would inevitably think _if_ he ever found this was the last thing he needed right now.

Thus, she would have to produce satisfying reports, and she would have to make sure he never found out. The lie justified itself through good intentions…

If these words were at least sufficient to say everything, to do it justice, if the superiors that were going to read them would even give as much of a rat's ass about _everything_ …

That everything appeared to have worked out in the end was true, but so was the first part of her laconic little report – The very fact that he had been physically affected at all was in itself the most obvious sign of how much that battle had wrecked this boy – she tried to remember their first meeting. Even back then, it hadn't taken her long to notice that he was carrying some serious baggage with him, but he had unusually been pretty fast to complain about her "borrowed" car batteries and even got a little cheeky – but what did she even know about what was "usual" for him?

No, the truth was that she had to way to measure just how much damage, _permanent_ damage had already accumulated, just from the two very first battles. It didn't seem unreasonable to guess that he would never be the same again…

And so far, she wasn't convinced that she had done anything to mitigate that in any significant way.

There was no way she could not have noticed – Soon after the immediate tension of the moment had dissolved into relief, the resulting sensation of warmth began to dissipate with the passage of time, giving way to the more practical, physical concerns of their reality, and part of that was that he had not been taking care of himself lately – Not just in the three days and three nights in which he had been wandering the streets of Tokyo-3, but also in the time before that, when he had shut himself in his room at first.

The ugly truth stung her as early as when she had lead him to her car to take him home, in the form of a slight but noticeable limp – It wasn't as bad as it could have been, the explanation was tame enough, and she could deduce it herself: Since he had been retrieved without shoes for some reason, the soles of his feet had been covered in scrapes, and those hadn't healed in a single night. But the occasional grazes he had accumulated here and there were the least of the problems.

One of the first things she tried was to try and convince him to wash himself – that was very much overdue, but it would have to wait, for the very first thing he did as soon as they arrived at her, no, their apartment, was to let himself sink into his bed, where he instantly fell into a deep slumber from which he didn't wake until the next day's evening.

Gently, and careful not to sound too demanding, she finally made him discard the uniform he hadn't changed out for God knows how long (The pant legs, in particular, were covered in mud – She didn't even bother to take any of it to the dry cleaner's, and instead threw everything he had been wearing at that moment straight into the garbage chute – Even if there had still been any hope for that thing, she just didn't want to see it ever again, and she would lose all hope for him if he didn't share that sentiment.) and finally got him to go and wash himself – She couldn't convince him to take a bath and she didn't think it would be too productive to insist on it as long as he agreed to any contact with hot water at all, everything else could wait. An extensive shower would have to be enough.

If any of his less material burdens had followed the layers of dirt into the drain, his expression didn't reveal it.

Getting him to eat something was a little trickier – he didn't even answer when she asked him what he wanted. Misato proceeded to search her collection of canned soups for whatever seemed to have the most vitamins in it (by the standards of her kitchen, that is) and claimed that she would leave it in his room just in case he felt like trying it. At first, it seemed like he wasn't going to touch it, but next time she returned to check on him, she found the bowl neatly emptied out – She could picture him listlessly trying a spoonful at first, mostly so _she_ wouldn't be disappointed, only to realize just how long it had been since his last proper meal.

In the meantime, he had put a new battery into his cassette player and immersed himself in his music – Misato did not know whether to count this as a positive sign or not, but he did remove his earplugs when he saw her coming.

She did not immediately realize that he wanted to ask her something, it was more through coincidence than through attentiveness that she caught one more glimpse of him when she bent forward to pick up the bowl, when he hadn't expected her to look at him and thus made less of an effort to hide that he was observing her, scrutinizing every minute detail, every ever so tiny gesture or nonverbal cue, sucking it with empty eyes like black holes, and last few residual doubts in his heart – By then, Misato was already aware that she was being tested: In other words, if he opened his mouth now, what would she do to him? How would she react? Would she scold him, but still grudgingly give him what he wanted, more out of a sense of duty than anything else, or just so he would shut up and leave her alone?

Was he an annoyance? Was he unwanted? Was he a burden?

That what he was he was cautiously trying to probe her about, glance after glance, second after second, as if he were warily treading on thin ice – Her presence on that train station had made it conceivable for him that the answer could indeed be "No", that he may actually have found a place of warmth and refuge, but his scarred heart was far too accustomed to disappointment to believe it this easily.

That he might want seconds was just a lucky guess, but as minimal as it may have been, she did not fail to notice his nod, and the long silhouette that, according to his experience so far, should have disappeared back into the light emanating from the doorway stayed with him, even after she had brought him the second bowl.

She playfully warned him not to choke on it, but she may have rejoiced to soon – despite his initial enthusiasm, he only ate half of it (It may have been too much at once, after several days of only vending machine snacks) and then asked to be left alone.

Less than two hours after he'd woken up, he was back in the arms of Morpheus, still wearing his earphones – She removed them, turned off his cassette player and put it on his nightstand, lest he damage the cable tangle by turning around in his sleep.

It was about noon when he first left his room the next day, and by then, it had become apparent that he must've caught some nasty bug in the cold of these rainy nights, and when she saw him lying there, weakened and afflicted, it became increasingly clear to her that this was _serious_ , that this entire piloting business could really be the end of him, one way or another, and for one short instant, she cursed him for having stayed – Perhaps Dr. Akagi had been right with her cynical assessment that it was less a question of whether he would recover, and more one of how long he could hold out.

Even now, she stayed at his side, brought her paperwork with her and made herself comfortable at the edge of his bed, abusing an old folder as a blotter pad, taking a little reading lamp with her and even some drinks and snacks, giving him a half-joking warning to stay away from her beer whenever she absolutely couldn't avoid leaving the room.

She had even taken her phone with her , although its first bout of clamant ringing forced her to admit, rather sheepishly, that it might have been a lot more productive if she had set it to vibrate right away. "Yes? Hyuuga-kun? No, I can't come today, you'll just have to do it without me."

Since there was neither a battle nor any mayor experiment taking place right now, she had resolved to stay here to look after Shinji and do today's paperwork at home.

That the boy was very relevant to her superiors was, at very least, a pretty good excuse. She did not envy all the single mothers who did not have this privilege.

But now that she thought about it, she wondered who had stayed at his side whenever he was sick before he had come here, especially when he was younger… who had consoled him whenever he had unpleasant dreams, who had been there for him in all those little moments of weakness that were part of life, growing up and its different stages and anyway-

"…Please… stay with me…"

"Uh, I'm… right here."

"Please don't… leave me all alone… I don't wanna… be alone, not now…"

"I'm not going anywhere."

"…please, someone… anyone… stay with me…"

With comprehending disillusionment, Misato was forced to conclude that these words of despair hadn't been addressed at her in the first place – He was muttering to himself, in his sleep. Must be the fever. They could really do without that, too. It shouldn't surprise her.

"I… I'm right here." She whispered to him regardless of that, hoping that her words would still trickle through somehow and change that dream in so far that it would deviate from whatever bitter memory it was probably based on, most notably through the retroactive insertion of a source of warmth and comfort – If Ritsuko were here, she would probably explain in detail why that didn't work like this, but Misato didn't care.

His mumbling was no longer intelligible, but there was still an understated stirring, and then a sudden, unpredictable movement, he just turned around and the next moment, his head was on her lap, leaving her no chance to keep doing her paperwork or removing herself from this place without waking him.

That, however, did the trick, her presence, her warmth, her smell or all of it together: From then onwards, he remained as he was, silent and calm, like a peaceful little baroque putto.

Sure, Misato could understand why he'd like this, but she herself could only comment this awkward situation with a notably self-ironic grin.

Nonetheless, she did tentatively pat his head.

"It's okay, I'm right here, and I'm not going anywhere…"

Later that day (The leader of the operations division had eventually escaped the unscheduled cuddling session) there was a knock on the front door, and once again, Misato was met with the faces of two particular boys – The two who had been in the entry plug, Aida and Suzuhara, carrying yet another pile of printouts with them.

Of course, she had to tell them that the Third Child was in no shape to see them, but this time at least, she would make sure that he was well aware of their visit.

The next time she found him mostly awake, she demonstratively pulled the door wide open and ceremonially dumped the papers on his desk, not caring whether she had gone overboard with the enthusiasm in her voice or not. She wanted to communicate this to him, and if this required the subtlety of a cartoonish anvil hitting him on the head, then so be it! Extreme situations required extreme measures, and this included talking in a silly singsong: "Oh, Shin-chaaaan, here are your printouts for schoool! Aida-kun and Suzuhaaaaara-kun just dropped by to bring them to you!"

Misato could hardly believe his expression when he heard that.

He was happy.

Boy, what was he happy, blissful even, in a tired and bittersweet manner, like a dying man's last smile.

It seemed like too much, almost morbid to feel such joy about such a relatively small thing – She guessed that he, too, wouldn't have been able to explain himself if she had asked him why he was smiling like this, and why it was followed by a sudden, final liberations of both pent-up tears and something else that he had held back for a long, long time, the greatest lump having been there ever since the battle, but there were also older, deeper things coming loose, sediments and crusts of emotions, nourished over a long time by a constant suffering like some sort of gallstone.

It was the sort of smile that came with a certain finality, that formed when nothing else would do the situation justice.

It was now when she saw the healing process set it, pullulating from beneath like something wild and foreign, raw and soft, almost a little unpleasant in the way it broke through layers of hardened scabs, that she really understood that he must have lost something irreplaceable here, somewhere over the course of his stay here in Tokyo-3.

The person who arrived in this city roughly a month ago would never leave it, and she wondered if he was aware of that, or if he only saw his current self that was silently smiling before her, defined only through that arcane source from which his very thoughts sprang forth through unfathomable processes, new as the day, fleeting like the moment.

When she looked at the person lying in that bed right now, she saw someone battle scarred.

It was apparent that he felt the pain of it, but he was too young to understand what it truly meant to have his innocence ripped from him like that – But she knew it all the better, and the next thing she knew, she found her hand unconsciously sliding over her chest, where she had once been marked – He didn't have such an obvious, telltale mark on him, whatever the EVA and the angel had done with his nerves and his soul, the cruel hands of fate had passed through the upper layers of his skin like ghosts, leaving them untouched in appearance, and because he could not yet understand nor cry for this loss, she would do it for him and feel it for them both.

Maybe the knowledge that these two had come to see him was all it took, there were all sorts of stories about placebo effect, the psychological components of recovery and little miracles – or it might just be a coincidence, Misato didn't really care.

Either way, by the next morning, the fever was gone and he sat up, asking her to open the windows, pull aside the drapes and let in some daylight and fresh air.

After she'd brought him his breakfast, he already seemed to feel like engaging in proper activities other than lying in his bed and staring at the ceiling.

"So what would you like to do?" she asked, noticing that his cassette player was still untouched on his nightstand.

"I… I don't really know, I just want to… _do_ something again, just something…"

Because he could not think of anything else, he just grabbed his blanket, made himself comfortable on the couch and turned the TV on.

She didn't know what to think of his way of absorbing the various TV shows without expression, only to listlessly switch from one channel to the next after a seemingly arbitrary amount of time had passed, as if he were some sort of stranger only peripherally related to the many facets of humanity displayed on these screens.

Still, she had work to do.

After a while, PenPen, who had gloriously slept in today waddled into the living room, and spontaneously decided that he also felt like situating himself on the couch in front of the good old goggle box, and as Shinji made room for the bird, he already seemed capable to comment this with a thin smile, and since he hadn't bothered to put on his socks, Misato could see that those scrapes on his feet had mostly already vanished by then.

On this day, she decided to go back to work, since the Third Child appeared to be doing better – After all, she couldn't leave all her duties to the poor Hyuuga-kun, if she was honest with herself, she probably took advantage of him far too often. She had been intending to make it up to him for what felt like an eternity, but she already knew that something would always end up getting in the way, that those little favors she owed him would accumulate until she gave up on her plans – Leaving Shinji on his own this soon also tugged a little on her conscience, but as soon as she had gone back to work and inspected the many piles of paper that had accumulated on her desk, her routine took over and before long, there was a moment where she ceased to have the thought that she had a "situation" to take care of constantly present in her head – As soon as her level of worry fell below a certain threshold that made it an urgent, acute thing that required immediate attention, her laziness seemed to overturn all of her resolutions… How did this happen?

When she came home, she halfheartedly tried to keep Shinji from doing any housework, telling him to wait until he had properly recovered, but she couldn't make herself sound all too convincing – Over the past few weeks, she had learned to appreciate the advantages of a clean home where she didn't have to spend twenty minutes searching for her things, and at the end of the day, it was _him_ who carried a nicely decorated tablet into her room and put it on her desk as she typed away on her laptop – If she was honest, she hadn't even turned around to face him, and just casually mumbled a few short words of thanks – _Some_ guardian she was…

She had planned to eat breakfast with him, too, at very least the next day, if not for anything else then to strengthen that newly blooming, developing feeling of belonging, or at least of being home so that it might tie him to this place, even if she could not quite agree with herself whether that was a gesture of care or a cheap psychological trick used on a helpless victim – either way, her inner conflict was rendered moot by a disadvantageous combination of her vespertine beer dosage and staying up way past bed time.

By the time she woke up she found her apartment flooded with sunlight, her breakfast lovingly prepared and ready to be eaten, complete with a can of beer waiting right next to her plate, and, once again, absolutely no trace of the Third Child.

It did sting, the situation and how it stirred her memories of the last time he had disappeared from this house – but this time, it took no detective work to figure out where he had gone – His school bag was missing from his room, and so was the school uniform he had prepared a long time ago, not knowing what the next day would hold for him, leaving only an unused hanger.

* * *

"And…? How is your flat mate?"

"Well enough, I think. I guess the entire event has knitted us together a little… and not just us. He's been going to school again and ever since, he's been inseparable from that chaos duo from the incident. They phone him, they invite him to spend their free time together… Even if I still don't always grasp what exactly he is thinking…"

"I'd think that you'd have him figured out by now, after all, it's not like it's your first time living together with a man."

"This isn't really comparable to eight years ago. There's no romance involved…"

"I wouldn't be sure of that. If you ask me, Shinji-kun probably stayed because of you."

"No, you're wrong… the real reason… is his father. I think he'd do just about anything for a few words of praise or a pat on the shoulder from him…

He's just lonely and longing for affection…"

"…that he won't be getting from his father. You're very alike…"

"I just wonder why commander Ikari acts so cold towards his own son. He's a lot friendlier around Rei. That doesn't seem fair at all…"

"That's just what men are like, egoistic and uncaring… Believe me, I'm speaking from experience…"

"It's tough to be a woman nowadays, isn't it?"

"Anyway, it's time. We need to go back."

"Always the worker bee, hm? Oh, by the way, would you like to stop by for dinner tomorrow?"

"I'll pass. I've still got a few 'fond' memories of your culinary 'skills'…"

"Aw, come on!"

"Alright, but there are important experiments scheduled for tomorrow… what about the day after?"

"Deal."

* * *

"Your son's behavior is exactly as we predicted it…"

"Yeah. Next, we'll have to bring him and Rei closer together. Everything is going according to plan."

"After a plan that was crafted 14 years ago, a plan that predetermines the entire lives of mere teenagers… It's a cruel plan."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) I assumed that Gendo & co were not yet aware of Kaworu's existence at this point. Mari was classified as Fourth Child by principle of exclusion/because that's the number between three and five, but I think a recently translated bit of CR confirmed her as such. This does not mean that Touji can't get another designation. Har Har.
> 
> (2) …so, will we be finding out something about that mysterious blue haired girl that has been lurking in Shinji's vicinity until now? Of course we will! Team blue, rejoice! Look forward to chapter 11: [The Commander's Smile]


	12. 11: [The Commander's Smile]

* * *

_In the middle of a house_

_In the middle of nowhere_

_Bodies glide from room to room_

_I hate these walls_

_They speak to me:_

_"Hey, skin like a doll_

_You're no friend_

_Of the family"_

_Catch that light_

_It falls in subtle patterns_

_Crawls in_

_And tells them when their time is up_

_And when it's over_

_He takes her hand_

_and he kisses her cheek_

_She's a doll, oh yeah,_

_She's his_

_Spitting image_

_Where have you gone?_

_You're still a part of me_

_Hey, skin like a doll_

_You're no friend_

_Of the family_

_-The Toadies, 'Dollskin'_

* * *

Rather relieved to see Shinji back at school when they did, Touji and Kensuke wasted little time to fully accept him as one of their own, and before long, they had agreed to walk to school together on a regular basis, and found themselves on the schoolyard discussing the specifics of when and where to meet… completely oblivious to the silent blue-haired girl watching them from within the building, her lone red eye unwaveringly transfixed on them while her other one was still hidden beneath a patch.

* * *

Once again, there was this dream.

While the overall number of his subconscious effusions had more or less normalized by now, that one dream never ceased to pursue him. No three days passed in which his attempts to find nocturnal rest did not land him on that beach at least once.

Each and every time, he'd have the certain feeling that he'd found himself here innumerable times, even if he could never remember when that had been, other than in these dreams themselves.

How could he, anyway? The red streak in the sky, the extent of the destruction, that _dismembered female corpse_ the size of a _continent_ , and on top of it all, these monoliths…

As much as Shinji's definition of impossible had already been stretched by recent events, the odds of such a surreal place really existing were rather… insignificant.

Regardless of whatever this place was, he was certain that it was the loneliest, most desolate place he ever witnessed.

Not just because of the images themselves, but much more the emotions that inevitably came with them, like the background music of a movie scene; He had no idea what had caused the feelings to stir, it was as if he had suddenly sipped to the end of a film of which he had neither seen the rest not the prequels, and yet, it was unmistakably the end, the images spoke for themselves, even without that doubtless premonition that he would always be completely alone, no matter how many times he awakened here, a single, insignificant dot of life amidst a boundless, empty world that had been returned to its primal, lifeless state, as if the complete planet itself with everything that used to sprout and crawl on its surface had simply croaked like an upside-down goldfish in a poorly maintained aquarium, as if that same eternal cycle of life that had endlessly found a way to renew itself through the ages, and even found a way to recuperate after the hell of second impact, however decimated it had been left, had simply ground to a halt once and for all.

At first, he could make little sense of these feelings, but now, after having stood here countless times, after having _felt_ them countless times, he had come to take them as a sign that he would never see any of all these people he had met, not ever again.

Over and over, he wondered what on earth he must have done to deserve this cruel a punishment, why only he had been left behind here.

Rather strange, wasn't it?

This was a dream, right? So obviously, he was here because he had gone to bed last night, at most, this might be a reason to question the quality of his supper. Dreams had never needed much in the way of logical reasons for the bizarre sights they provided, and ultimately, they weren't real, so did it really matter that much what exactly he was doing here, if it was just a dream?

The point may have been that somehow, this did not _feel_ like 'just' a dream…

And that this may have been the reason why he kept being plagued by the same storm of questions that would have haunted him if he had actually woken up in such a place without any prior warning.

A few nights ago, he had noticed that those large, cross-shaped monoliths bore a distinct similarity to Evangelions. They had separate legs, albeit held closely together, and those recognizable armor plates on their lower chest and stomach.

What was definitely missing, however, were these pylons on the shoulders that the knives were usually stored in. In addition to that, they were completely white or gray, so for once, unit one couldn't be amongst them.

Still, could it be his connection to the Evangelions that had landed him in this godforsaken wasteland?

Until now, they had served to connect him to people rather than separate him, but what… if he should lose? What if it all blew up in his face…?

Was that what had happened? Had he failed?

Was that the reason he was all one?

Deserted, because he hadn't been good enough?

Just like when his father had deserted him?

That notion… seems rather probable.

He still didn't think that he could really do this…

But, if everything had ended, why was _he_ still here?

Questions, endless questions, amongst them the question as to whether there still was any point in opening his eyes and looking at his surroundings – After all, he had seen this particular dreamscape innumerable times, and what awaited him there rarely ever changed.

It was always the same – He was always alone, always asking himself, why there was nobody here to find him, even if he already knew very well that no one was coming.

Why would anyone ever come here for his sake, anyway?

He just wasn't worth it…

But… hadn't there once been an instance where someone actually _did_ come for him and him alone, such a long, long time ago? He wasn't sure, it felt like eternities had passed since then, like it might have been in another lifetime altogether, or just a long-faded dream.

Maybe… maybe there _was_ someone here.

Perhaps somewhere in this empty world, there was someone who had followed him when he had been cast out to this desert.

Not that he ever meant enough to anyone for them to choose this hell for his sake; Not that he would actually deserve it if all of this devastation was indeed his fault.

For that, the person in question would have to love him beyond the boundaries of sanity, and there wasn't anything about him that was particularly deserving of love.

He didn't dare open his eyes, for he was already certain that there was only disappointment for them to discover, but even then, that could not keep his fingers from feeling around the tiniest bit with their searching tips.

He allowed himself to wish, like he had never done it in any of the previous iterations of the dream.

If only someone was here… if only someone was here _with him…_ He didn't care who it was as long as he no longer would have to be alone in this horrible place, as long as there was anyone who could love him…

He knew that he didn't deserve it, but after all that had happened, he could no longer deny that he desired it with every fiber of his being.

That was the reason he couldn't bring himself to give up this possibility;

That was why he hadn't left Tokyo-3 after all.

That's why he kept searching, feeling his way until he actually felt something _other_ than the ground.

He couldn't believe it.

Here, in this lonely, empty world.

Here, within the minuscule reach of his halfheartedly searching hand.

Something warm.

It couldn't be, could it?

That would be far too crazy a coincidence? _This_ close to him?

That would have to mean that someone _deliberately_ sought him out, that they were here _because of him,_ and would have to have placed themselves this close to him by their own choice.

No matter how he looked at it, there was a human hand, there was a source of human warmth.

Someone who had come to him because they needed him.

Somebody who loved him.

Immediately, he seized the delicate, petite fingers with his own, squeezing them into all of the little lines and gaps of his flesh.

He could have broken down in tears right there and then.

This… this wasn't possible, this couldn't be, he didn't deserve this, there was no way this was anything other than a misunderstanding…

He wondered who exactly followed him here.

Who was the person who had missed him, the one who had loved him?

Well, it certainly wasn't his father, the fingers were too slim, too small to be his; Most likely, they were a girl's.

A girl who loved him.

A girl… who could that be?

Because of his young age and timid personality, Shinji had yet to acquire any significant experiences with the opposite sex…

Even still, that cue caused his consciousness to produce countless images of one Ayanami Rei.

Why Rei? Because she was the first girl around his age he could think of? Because of that habit of hers to show up in his dreams without explanation?

It could have been just that simple, but it wasn't. There was more, an entire deluge of pent-up feelings whose origin was unknown to him.

Feelings that made him have these thoughts of Rei.

Rei in her plugsuit, covered in bandages, breathing heavily in his arms.

Rei, all alone in a corner of their classroom, staring out of the window.

Rei in the schoolyard, looking down at him as she spoke.

Rei, completely alone and lost in the middle of an abandoned street – When was that again? He couldn't quite remember.

Rei, Rei, Rei, memories of Rei, images, that he shouldn't have seen yet – All of his being was filled to the brim with Rei, and he was nearing the point of bursting.

Could it be her?

Could she be the one who had come here to find him?

No… that would be far too perfect to be true – and therefore, it wasn't.

The very moment Shinji had overcome his fear of the unavoidable emptiness and loneliness of this place, he was forced to realize that there was no one lying next to him, and that there had never been anyone to begin with.

He had been clinging to a single, severed arm.

He couldn't even summon up the energy to react with disgust and let go of the lone limb.

It just wasn't fair.

He was so very, very alone…

And the fault was his own.

His fault.

Yes, now he remembered.

His fault.

It had been him.

He was the one who had created this empty, wasted world and then possessed the audacity to come back.

He couldn't say how in the name of god he had done it, or what had driven him to this desperate measure, but he was sure that all he was seeing here was the result of his very own actions.

It was hardly a secret that there wasn't anyone else here with him.

He was nothing but an egotistical, weak, dishonest _coward_.

He deserves this, every bit of this, this and nothing else.

And he didn't even have the energy to run away anymore.

"I see." Shinji's pendant from this dream said, surrendering to his fate in complete and utter resignation, weighed down by endless losses his current self could not even begin to comprehend.

"I guess I'll never see them again… but now that I'm here, I might as well keep on living…"

When Shinji finally opened his eyes, he found his whole body drenched in sweat. He'd had quite a share of nightmares in his life, especially since he had come here, be they about the battles, about his father and, most recently, about that attempt on his life, but this had most definitely been the most awful of them all.

That overwhelming feeling of loneliness… just thinking of it gave him chills.

The ceiling above him has long since turned into a familiar sight even without the aftereffects of those dreams, but that had only made that once fleeting impression that he was supposed to be hearing a girl's voice somewhere in this house all the more persistent.

By the time Shinji had sat up, all of it had more or less passed, and the rapidly fading memory of the dream was no longer coherent anymore for him to make sense of the reaction it caused, but that in itself was enough to make Shinji wonder just how much crazier his life was going to get.

He had yet to speak a single word about this woman… no, this thing he had encountered near that spring.

But much like the dream, even that event led his thoughts back to the person they had been circling ever since he moved here: Ayanami Rei.

The more he considered it, the more absurdly random it seemed to him that she of all people had appeared to him within that nightmare.

After all, when he really thought about it, they had hardly exchanged a handful of sentences ever since he moves to Tokyo-3.

True as it was, that conclusion felt rather dissuading, if not disappointing to him.

Even if he felt like she had been part of his life for eternities, the truth was that she was barely more than a complete stranger to him. Why was that? The former part, not just the latter. Because he'd thought about her so much?

But what did that really mean, to think about her?

Yes, he had been thinking _of_ her a lot, but not really _about_ her in the shape of concrete facts and reflections about them – for that, he would have needed to know such facts first, but all he really knew was her name, and that she was supposed to be an EVA pilot just like him.

He was suddenly hit by the sobering conclusion that he didn't really have a clue about her, and couldn't really claim to have any substantial connection to her, and it washed over him like a cold shower.

Somehow he had always counted her amongst his new social circle, always watched her from the distance, observing as the amount of bandages on her body slowly, but steadily diminished.

She was the reason he was here.

His father had called him here because she was injured and unfit for duty.

Because he hadn't wanted to send her into battle like that.

And Shinji didn't even know the reason for her injuries.

* * *

After Shinji had gotten dressed, made breakfast, and packed a lunch for himself, he was getting ready to leave for school as he usually did. Misato had left the house earlier today, stating that she had something urgent to take care of at NERV, some sort of security concern, apparently.

He had a distinct feeling that it had to be related to the newspaper article he found lying on the kitchen table – allegedly, the Tokyo-3-serial killer had struck again. And that worried Shinji more than the average citizen of this town – because he was very damn sure that this security lady had riddled that thing with bullets before his very eyes. Then again, who knew if such a… being could actually be stopped with bullets _at all_? The implications of this train of thoughts were so frightening and mind-numbing that Shinji frantically pressed them into some remote corner of his consciousness to concentrate on some of the more…. bearable aspect of his waking hours.

This thing had only walked into him by chance, hadn't it? So far, it appeared to have been choosing its victims at random, so there was no reason to suspect that it was after him in particular, was there?

If it was really after him, there would have been plenty of opportunities to kill him in the past week, right? But nothing of that sort had happened.

While it was true that his life had been getting crazier and crazier as of late, the last week hadn't been that much of a prime example – in fact, aside from the strange dreams, it had been surprisingly normal, if not almost… pleasant.

By now, he'd been beginning to get the gist of how to make sense of Misato's moods and begun to talk to her a little more freely, not about the big questions of life or his innermost worries, but at least about whatever normal, everyday things he may have done that day, and getting to just relax a little and getting to know each other bit by bit by conversing about a bit of trivia from time to time was not really all that bad.

Of course, there were still moments in which he felt isolated and found himself questioning whether this went anywhere beyond superficial pleasantries, well aware that it was only a matter of time before he would be forced into another of this horrible, terrifying battles when the next angel inevitably arrived, but he no longer felt that way _all the time_ , especially not at school.

Ever since last week, he would often encounter Touji and Kensuke at some point of his way to school, where he would usually turn off his SDAT-player and join them – honestly smiling from the bottom of his heart and deeply grateful for the first two proper friends he ever had.

They would talk to him during recess and in-between periods, made jokes about the old teacher or the stuffy class representative, and generally attempted to drag him into various sorts of 'boys stuff'.

He could hardly believe how naturally it had happened – At first, he had needed to get used to be in a 'conversation-situation' that often, and even without warning, but after the first few of Touji's jokes, Shinji had gotten over his initial nervousness, and before he knew, he had reached the point where he was more or less freely interacting with them without having to think about every single word and carefully weigh their possible reactions against each other, as if it was the most obvious thing imaginable, something he had always been meant to do this every day, and only hindered by a string of adverse circumstances until now.

On the second day, Touji and Kensuke had received the first praise the class representative had given them in what could have been centuries for 'successfully integrating the new kid into their class', and after that, even all the others seemed to accept the sight of the three of them hanging out together as the new status quo.

And even Touji and Kensuke themselves appeared completely used to welcoming Shinji with an amicable greeting when he entered the classroom in the morning, as if it never had been any different. Today was no exception.

"Hi, Ikari!" they called, waving in his direction –

Perhaps Shinji himself was the only one who still wasn't completely used to it.

Hesitantly returning their wave, he removed his headphones and walked over to them, becoming part of one of these little groups he had only walked past before.

"Hello, you two." He tentatively returned their greeting. "It's, uh, nice to see you."

"The pleasure's all ours." Touji replied. "But do tell, where did you disappear to yesterday?"

"I uh… I was at NERV. Did I miss something important?"

"No, not really." Touji admitted. "We just did some repetitions in math class, and as for the history period, there was nothing but the usual lecture on second impact."

"What exactly where you doing at NERV, anyway?" asked Kensuke, eager to know. "Some more Pilot-training?"

"Something like that." Shinji confirmed. "Ritsuko-san from the technical Branch and her co-workers came up with some new battle simulations they wanted me to try…"

"Wow! Real battle simulations! With _holodecks_ and stuff? I can't believe how lucky you are! That sure sounds a lot more fun that sitting around at school."

"It… it wasn't really that exciting…" Shinji answered. "In the end, it was just simple target practice… Although that's only natural, considering that I've never really handled actual guns or knives before, so it's probably a good thing that I have to do this considering that… the next enemy… could show up at any moment…"

Towards the end of that sentence, the young EVA pilot had begun to sound increasingly uncomfortable, and Touji could easily imagine why. Thus, he decided to change the topic before Kensuke could ask further questions. "Oh, and Ikari, did you know that you've officially lost the right to the title of 'New kid'?"

"Uh… why?"

"Because we've got a …newer new kid now." The boy in the tracksuit announced.

"Ah… really?"

"Yeah, really. He arrived yesterday while you were away. The one back there, with that bandage thing around his head. I think the name's Mitsurugi. Mitsurugi… Nanao?"

"Nagato." Kensuke corrected. "But you were close enough."

Indeed, Shinji was able to spot a new face at the back of the classroom.

The newcomer was a slender, tallboy who, matching Touji's description, was wearing a cast around his head, under which a bob of chin-length, midnight-black hair sprung forth.

Both his hair color, and the black undershirt he appeared to be wearing beneath his orderly, nigh-immaculate uniform did their part to underline his already pale-ish skin tone, though it was far from matching the pallor of one particular girl.

His steely-grey eyes were transfixed on a small mechanical puzzle he was using to keep hin fingers busy until the teacher arrived.

"Looks rather painful." Kensuke commented. "I wonder what happened to him."

But Shinji was hardly listening anymore. His thoughs were already focused on something else, for as he had directed his gaze at Mitsurugi's bandages, he'd noticed something just past him, or rather, _someone_ whom he was, for the very first time, seeing _without_ bandages: Sitting two seats in front of Mitsurugi… was Ayanami Rei.

As she was currently just looking out of the window as she usually did, Shinji could once again see little more than the blue locks covering the back of her head, but it was sufficient to verify that the last of the bandages were indeed gone, including that string that had been holding that patch above her eye in place – As it seemed, her second eye appeared to be intact (again?), despite Shinji's earlier pessimistic guesses.

He'd been worrying for quite some time that she may have lost it permanently, but at least that particular worry appeared to have been unfounded.

Lately, he had been forced to get used to the idea that she _was always_ this pale by default. Her skin was hardly any darker than the white parts of her simple school uniform – with or without bandages, she still looked like she might faint and die at any given moment.

Her delicate, petite build and the ghostly color of her hair in the sunlight might have also played their parts in it.

He couldn't shake off that urge to grab her, take her into his arms and tuck her into a nice, warm bed where she would be safe and sound and wouldn't in danger of being as much as poked.

"Hey, Ikari, are you even listening?"

It was Touji's slightly annoyed voice that broke Shinji out of his further contemplations about that one girl who had held him under her inexplicable spell for the past weeks.

"Uh… what were you saying again?"

"That it's rather unusual for us to get a new classmate." Kensuke explained.

"Uh, why is that?"

"Well, look around you. It's gotten rather spacious here lately, hasn't it?" the military otaku continued. "Before the first battle, most classrooms here were bursting at the seams since Tokyo-3 was supposed to become the new capital, but for some reason, our class was always mostly spared of that rush. And now that everybody is fleeing the city because of the battles, we're the ones getting two new students, counting you. Before the battles, the only transferee we ever got was Ayanami."

"Ayanami, hm?"

Before Shinji could ask further questions, the old teacher appeared in the door, prompting the class representative to promptly assume her usual post and begin barking out orders:

"Rise! Bow! Sit down!"

* * *

The following lesson turned out to be exactly as 'interesting' as many before it, so that the majority of the students were very releaved when the heavens finally took pity on them and made the school bell ring.

After stuffing his belongings into his bag, he risked a glance to the latter rows, observing quietly as Ayanami unceremoniously gathered her things in comparable silence before walking right out of his field of vision.

Somehow, even watching her do trivial things like gathering her school utensils had a strangely captivating quality to it, a constant aura of strange familiarity and recognition was sewn to her footsteps.

When she left, she revealed the transferee behind her, who was hastily scribbling something unto a piece of paper – some forgotten homework, perhaps?

Shinji could only guess.

In any case, he was sitting all alone on his desk, which was hardly any surprise considering that he'd only just transferred yesterday. Shinji still remembered all too well what his first few weeks in this school had been like…

He had Touji and Kensuke now, but that didn't mean that he had forgotten what that solitude had felt like, enough to worry about whether this Mitsurugi had been able to make any friends yet.

Admittedly, it was only his second day here, but Shinji felt tempted to just spare that boy all that trouble and talk to him him… even if nothing would come of it.

Hesitantly, Shinji approached his new classmate – upon closer inspection, the papers Mitsurugi had been occupying himself with had sudokus and crossword puzzles on them, which he was steadily filling, apparently indifferent to the fact that the bell had long since rung.

His eyes were transfixed on those alone, and Shinji didn't think that the transferee had even noticed him yet, which wasn't all bad since it left the choice of the first words to Shinji.

Except that he couldn't really think of _what_ to say.

And as it happened far too often, his luck left him as soon as his courage: Sooner or later, the black-haired transferee would have to peer beyond his sudokus, and the variant that destiny chose to pick was 'sooner.'

So it came to pass that Shinji suddenly became aware that Mitsurugi appeared to have been looking up towards him for quite some time now, probably waiting for him to say something.

Notably hindered by his disconcertment, Shinji's brain went through a list of possible conversation topics… oh right, he hadn't even introduced himself yet; Introductions were a good place to start.

"G-Good morning, Mitsurugi…-san… I… I'm, uh, Ikari Shinji. I just thought I should introduce myself since I was, uh, absent yesterday."

Mitsurugi's expression didn't reveal much about his inner reactions, if any.

"Thank you. I wish you a good morning as well, Ikari-san." He stated, polite, yet dry. "The others mentioned you a lot. You're the 'old' 'new kid', aren't you?"

"E-Exactly!" Shinji answered with a hectic nod.

After that, he fell silent, at a loss for words which was exasperated by Mitsurugi looking at him without any words of his own.

He figured that all of this might have been a lot easier if either of them had been of the talkative kind that asks lots of questions.

Shinji wondered just _what_ the others had said about him.

But first, he had to think about something else to talk about, preferably before recess was over.

"I think we have , uh… PE next." It spontaneously occurred to him.

"Would you like me to show you the way to the gym…?

Or… do you think you can find it on your own?"

Mitsurugi shook his head.

"Thank you for your offer, but you don't have to bother yourself with that…"

"I really don't mind at all!" Shinji assured.

"That's not what I meant. I'm not going."

And then, it hit him quite bluntly.

Of course. Whatever had demolished this boy's head to the point that he would need that cast probably hadn't left him in any state to participate in any sort of sports.

It was rather depressing to notice just how 'gloriously' he'd dropped that huge a brick this early in this conversation. "I'm, uh, very sorry, what I meant was… er… in any case I'm really sorry."

"Hey, Ikari!" Time was already up.

That was Touji's voice, and when Shinji slightly turned to face him, he saw that he also had Kensuke with him, both of them armed with their PE bags. Kensuke's was, of course, covered in a camouflage pattern.

"…what are you standing around here for? The class rep's gonna give us hell if we're late!"

"We can, ehm, leave right away!" Shinji answered, having taken his bag with him when he left his desk.

"And we wouldn't mind you coming with us either if you want to." Kensuke told Mitsurgi. But the transferee just shook his head again.

"He isn't going." Shinji explained.

"I see." Touji answered. "Did you give the class rep some medical attestation stating that you can't participate?"

"You mean Horaki-san? No, I… haven't, I'm I afraid I've neglected to do that…" the bandaged boy admitted. "But I do have an attestation."

"Then you should give it to her ASAP. She's the one who handles the class register and all that other organizational stuff, and believe me, she can be a real pain in the ass when she wants to."

"Or wait. What if _we_ give it to her?" Kensuke proposed. "I doubt we can catch up to her before she reaches the sports grounds, but we can at least give it to her on the way back before she gets a chance to chew you out."

"That would be very kind of you. You have my earnest gratitude." Mitsurugi replied, fairly matter-pf-factly and accompanied by a small nod, before handing the three of them a paper which Kensuke was quick to pouch before rushing after Touji, who had already departed by the beginning of the second sentence, optimistically following some futile hope of reaching the locker room in time.

Shinji left the 'new new kid' a few sparse parting words before hurrying after his friends.

"I feel kind of sorry for the transferee." Touji told his friends as they caught up with him. "He's missing PE, the only time at school where they actually give you good grades for having fun."

"That depends on whether you actually consider sports to be fun." Kensuke objected.

"I just end up falling on my face. But I guess most people tend to enjoy the kind of things they're good at."

"What about you, Ikari?" Touji asked the newest member of their small group. "Do you enjoy sports?"

"I… don't really know…"

That he never really had the heart to ask the other children in his small village to let him play with them was something he chose to keep to himself at this point. "I… I just hope I won't end up getting hit in the face by a ball…"

"You won't have to worry about that for a while – They're making us run laps for today, not that this is particularly comforting considering the sheer heat outside…" Kensuke admitted. "The girls got lucky today, they get to go swimming while we're forced to bake in the sun…"

But Touji had a more relaxed view of the situation: "Well, at least we'll have a nice view of the pool from the sports grounds – something else poor Mitsurugi is going to miss." He explained, adorning his scheming with a telltale grin that made the… indecent nature of his thoughts fairly obvious. While Kensuke was soon 'infected' by similar… thought material, Shinji's deliberations had gone into a whole different direction.

He was easily able to picture quite well that couldn't be all too pleasant to stay behind in the classroom by oneself, while everyone else was enjoying themselves under the sun, thought it wasn't primarily Mitsurugi he was thinking of – It was only his second day here, there was no good reason why he couldn't acquire himself a sizeable group of friends within this week.

But there was someone else.

Someone who had spent the last weeks alone in that classroom, regardless of whether the others had gym class or not.

He'd never seen her with someone else; In all the time he's spent in this classroom, he hadn't seen her talking with anybody at all, not even once.

There was simply no way he could have overlooked the only person who had been every bit as alone as he had been: Ayanami Rei.

But now, he had Touji and Kensuke.

He was no longer alone, at least not always –

But Rei still was.

And she had been all along.

He couldn't say why, but by now, he was more than certain.

That poor girl...

Knowing the hell of solitude well enough, he could only perceive the very thought that this brave, yet fragile girl might be enduring a similar suffering as the kind of injustice that ought to cry out to the heavens.

* * *

The dimensions of the track forced the teachers to divide the boys of the class II-A into two groups, which would then subsequently granted the questionable privilege to spend twelve minutes jogging in the blazing sun one after the other.

While the first group was already enduring its ordeal, the second one was still waiting for its cruel fate – among them, one Ikari Shinji.

Most of the boys were passing the time before the exercise with looking up towards the pool on the roof of the adjacent building, where the girls were practicing aquatic sports in their black school-issue swimsuits.

But Shinji's gaze went past all of the tanned beauties and their opulent bodies made of splendorous curves.

All of the girls were pretty, but he could hardly apart, couldn't name the differences between them. In the end, his eyes ended up scorning them all in favor of the sickly-looking, short-haired girl in the corner, who stood out like an oasis in an endless desert. His undivided attention rested solely on this pale, frail being who was sitting all alone in a corner, with her legs drawn close to her body like some sort of lost, forgotten child.

Something about the sight depressed him beyond words…

But Shinji had forgotten that he wasn't the only one letting his gaze drift to these scantily clad females – more than enough for them to ineluctably notice:

"Hey, could you please give me my towel?" one of them asked. "The boys are staring at us again."

"Suzuhara is the worst of them!"

"But Ikari is quite cute, isn't he? ….HEY! IKARI-KUN!"

Blatant as they may have been, those gestures of flattery did not really enter Shinji's perception, as little the somewhat "indecent" comments of his currently rather entertained friends did – Too deeply had he allowed himself to get lost in his deliberations about the subject of his own deliberations.

But even this did not go unnoticed for long – After the class representative and her friends had hidden their thighs beneath their towels, Touji decided out of spontaneous curiosity to check out whatever his friends were looking at. Since Kensuke appeared to have had the same idea as him, Touji could assume that the person whose butt his friend had been ogling had either covered herself or reached her turn to jump into the pool.

Shinji, by contrast, was still firmly gazing into one and the same direction, as if he had completely forgotten all of the world surrounding him.

"Hey, Sir, what'cha lookin' at so intently?" Touji inquired with a huge grin on his face.

"U-Uh, nowhere in particular…" Shinji stammered nervously, suddenly aware that his observations carried a sizeable risk for misunderstandings.

But it was already too late: Kensuke, who had now leaned backward to addresses the two of them, had easily spotted where, or rather, _who_ Shinji's looks had been directed at, and didn't seem adverse to sharing his conclusion: "Ayanami, by any chance?"

"What would make you think that?" Shinji asked in a desperate attempt to avoid a significant misunderstanding – he certainly hadn't been looking at her... like _that_ …

But the damage was already done, and denying it any further would probably just serve as a confirmation to his friends: "I've been _looking_ at you!" Kensuke declared. "You've been undressing her with your eyes!"

"While you were dreaming of her shapely boobies!" Touji added. "…of her soft thighs and especially… of WHAT'S IN BETWEEN THEM!"

That last bit had more or less been chanted in unison as they had come uncomfortably close to Shinji's face, causing him to retreat a bit after they were done speaking.

"It _really_ wasn't like that…" he tried again, not really believing that he could still escape being branded as a lecher.

"Why were you looking at her, then?" Kensuke replied, more as a rhetoric question than anything else. "Because you _were_ looking, don't even bother denying it!"

Averting his brooding face from his friends, Shinji finally revealed the truth: "I was just wondering… why she's always all alone…"

Kensuke and Touji, who hadn't been expecting such a serious answer, brought themselves back into mostly normal positions.

None of them had ever really thought about that.

"Hm… I don't know either." Touji admitted.

"But what you say is true… I don't think she's made a single friend since she transferred to this school last year…"

"Well, it's not like she ever talks to anyone." Kensuke added. "She's just sitting there quietly and staring into the air…"

"She just doesn't seem approachable…"

"She might have a bad personality, and that's why no one wants to hang around with her."

"Or maybe she's just a little bit retarded or something…"

Shinji had to admit that he had never looked at it like this – If he was honest, he really couldn't recall any instance where she had as much as tried to speak or socialize with anyone, or even really _looked_ at them.

While Shinji thought that it was a stretch to immediately jump to such conclusions as her being a bad person, or even 'retarded', (Or perhaps he was in disbelief that it could be something this… common?) there was no denying that Rei must have partially caused her isolation herself, or, at least, hadn't managed to actively counteract it.

But none of these scenarios seemed like a complete master theory to explain every single detail of the situation, and it wasn't like he knew her well enough to just go and draw any conclusions about her. It wouldn't be fair to judge her without having ever talked to her properly – and as often as he had thought about it and imagined in his head what turns a conversation with her could possibly take, he didn't thing that he would ever work up the courage to approach her…

It was rather disheartening.

Still, before Shinji had any chance to tax his thinking organ any further, the teacher's whistle could be heard – A certain sign that his friends and he could no longer escape the horrors of the twelve-minute-walk.

Not that Shinji cared any longer; he had long since slipped out of the suitable mood for this sort of half-serious complaint.

There was something very different that occupied his inside in its entirety, and let everything on the outside just drift past him:

The enigma of Ayanami Rei.

"…but… isn't she an EVA pilot just like you?" Kensuke asked, already in motion. "Shouldn't you know her better than any of us?"

"That's right…" Touji agreed.

But that hardly helped to relieve Shinji of his rotten mood, or the ocean of questions swirling around in his head.

It only confirmed the sad realization that he'd already arrived at by himself: Despite their shared fate, and what might soon become a shared suffering as well, Rei and him didn't really have anything to do with each other.

"It's true…" Shinji finally admitted, resigned. "…but we still hardly talk to each other…"

That afternoon, NERV's schedule involved yet another harmonix-test, this time one that would be carried out directly in the cages, so Shinji would actually be sitting in his Evangelion – but he wouldn't be alone.

For the first time since the incident that had caused her wounds, Ayanami was to participate in the experiments once against.

Nonetheless, there was yet another appointment on the Third Child's timetable before the test itself – Misato had offered Dr. Akagi to meet her at the grounds on which the last battle, so that she could be informed about the current state of the research and investigation taking place here – Like her predecessor, the fifth angel had almost instantly disintegrated into red, viscous goo upon her defeat, but unlike him, she had left something behind in this world: Her now congealed tentacles of light that had still been embedded in Unit One's abdomen at the time of her death.

Now, long after they had been salvaged and covered in enormous tents and pavilions, NERV's scientists were having the time of their lives as they gathered and analyzed samples from the material.

In his memories, those whips had been fast, flexible, deadly and bright as a magnesium flame; Now, he was standing in front of colossal, rigid, concrete grey structures of monumental dimensions which had been significantly less apparent from within the Evangelion, considering that its own size was not exactly shabby.

The dully-colored matter bore little resemblance to the weapons which had pierced him, or rather, EVA 01, to the point where he probably wouldn't have recognized them if he hadn't received an explanations beforehand; At its edges, the substance appeared affected by a strange kind of decay that left its borders looking somewhat blurred, or perhaps like a fading picture on an old photograph in the process of crumbling away.

Most of the pool of blood which had resulted from the creature's explosion had already been disposed of, even if the liquid's characteristic stench still lingered in the air, enough to be perceived clearly if you concentrated on it and perhaps to irritate the occasional subconscious.

Seeing it like this certainly did present Shinji with a wholly different way to see and perceive the enemy than facing it in battle did; When he was fighting it, struggling against the force and vehemence of an enormous monster that seemed determined to put the fear of God into him, he was, first and foremost concerned with destroying the enemy so that he might survive – that left to time to spend wondering about things like the enemy's nature and composition.

"It's a strange feeling to see the enemy up close…" Shinji remarked, summarizing his impressions so far.

He and Misato had finally managed to find Dr. Akagi, who was awaiting them on some sort of scaffolding, turning towards their direction with a clipboard in one of her hands.

"Well done, Shinji-kun!" she commended from up there. "I don't know how exactly you did it, but somehow, this angel just liquefied right away instead of exploding in the process, so the damage to the surrounding area was minimal, and these crystalized 'arms' of its were left almost completely intact. Now we finally have some proper samples to do research on… and it's all thanks to you!"

Shinji didn't really know what to do with that praise – He certainly hadn't spent any second of the battle wondering whether the angel would make a good research subject afterwards, and this fortunate coincidence made it only harder for him to gauge whether any of the NERV personnel still resented him for what they could only have seen as an insubordination.

"And..?" Misato asked right away. "When will we have the first results?"

The first results were promptly shown to them in one of the quieter corners of the huge pavilion, one that was reserved for computer terminals: They consisted of exactly three digits: 6-0-1.

"And what exactly does that mean?" Misato asked.

"That's the standard error message for 'unable to analyze'…"

"So we still don't have a clue what we're up against?!"

"I'm afraid so. All we know is that the angels are composed of a form of matter that shows characteristics of both waves and particles – like solid light." the scientist reported, casually sipping at her coffee.

Misato and Shinji, who had been administered beverages of their own upon arrival, quickly followed her lead, but in their cases, the consumption of liquid was primarily intended to help the digestion of the bizarre new information.

"But you'd think that it should at least have been possible to isolate the source of that insane power of theirs…"

"Unfortunately not. Aside from these crystalized fragments here, the Angel's body has completely dissolved, along with all of its secrets…"

"Does that mean that the Angel's remains cannot give us any answers at all?"

"Not exactly…" Dr. Akagi replied, rising from her chair. "…but for every answer it gives us, it opens up ten more questions… For example, look at its wave patterns…"

The scientist quickly typed something into the keyboard and then stepped aside for Misato's and Shinji's curious eyes as they leant forward to watch a sequence of letters be replaced by a similarly labeled collection of figures and diagrams.

Unlike her ward, Misato understood their significance right away: "Is this for real?"

"Yes. Even though the tissue is composed of a form of matter that is foreign to us, it contains structures that are highly similar to human DNA. The sequences are over 99% identical. A comparison: We share over 98% with a chimpanzee and about 99,5 with a Neanderthal."

"This says 99,89…" Misato stated, astonished.

"This means that we are once again forced to acknowledge that there are still many things out there that we don't understand."

While Shinji was initially eying the monitor in a rather clueless manner, he was soon distracted by the sound of nearby steps as the two women were still speaking.

When he turned his head towards the two passing men, it was simple, casual curiosity that motivated him, but the emotions that made his eyes stay on them were of a very different nature.

They were Vice-Commander Fuyutsuki Kozo… and Commander Ikari Gendo.

Most likely, they didn't even take notice of Shinji's presence as they were marching towards a group of scientists who were busying themselves with a compact-car-sized shard of the angel's whip arms, while some of their colleagues were working on the area which that piece had been cut from.

They were received by a tall man in his mid-thirties who wore his jet-black hair way past his shoulders despite his age. Underneath his lab coat, he was wearing a NERV uniform much like the one Hyuuga and Aoba tended to wear, and as he saw his superiors approach, he reached for the clipboard he'd put away later to use his hands to hold tools, and greeted them with a rather informal wave.

"Hello Commander! And hello, Subcommander, as well! I presume you've come to ask about the progress of our analysis?"

"Indeed." Fuyutsuki confirmed.

"So? Have you been able to find any remains of the power source?"

"I'm afraid not, Sir."

"And what about the rest?"

"The rest is rather homogenous and hardly shows any discernible structures or organs… and as you see, it's decaying quite fast. I don't think that it will be of much use for us…"

"That's not a problem. Have the rest disposed of." The Commander ordered.

"Is there anything that you'd like to inspect personally before that?"

Apparently, there was. Shinji had been following the conversation intently, even if it's topic had little to do with him, or, for that matter, anything he had a basic understanding of. His father's involvement alone was enough to keep Shinji's eyes transfixed.

He had never really gotten to know that strict, cold man and hardly knew anything about him. Even now that he was living in Tokyo-3 and working at NERV, he still had little involvement with the elder Ikari, and hardly ever spoke to him at all, especially not about personal matters.

Somehow he wanted to know just what exactly it was about this work of his that had been so much more interesting to him than Shinji himself has ever been.

That even the hope of finally getting to understand his father was beginning to mingle with his cocktail of emotions was something that he initially tried to suppress, lest he end up setting himself up for disappointment with empty hopes.

Shinji was about to follow on that thought and avert his gaze when a small, trivial gesture confronted him with a completely new piece of information without any sort of prior warning:

Apparently rather interested in personally inspecting the angel's tissue, Ikari Gendo parted with the white gloves that usually accompanied him everywhere he went, and let his bare hands wander over the sample's fading surface, shaking loose a few luminous, flake-like particles as he stared into it at a particular angle, as if he were expecting profound revelations from it.

He paused to issue a few orders that may or may not be based on any conclusions he might have drawn before putting his gloves back on and leaving it to Fuyutsuki to actually skim through the fine-print of the actual reports on the researcher's clipboard.

The white accessories had only left their place for a few minutes at most, but it was enough. Shinji could not possibly have missed _why_ his father hardly separated from his gloves – His entire palms, extending to the lowest phalanges of his fingers were covered in disfiguring, leathery burn scars.

Shinji was at a loss.

He didn't have the slightest clue where his father could have gotten these burns.

He couldn't even say _when_ these injuries could have been acquired. His memories of the time before his father had given him away were nebulous at best and simply insufficient to tell if he'd already had the scars back then, or whether he'd gotten them in that eternally long time in which "infrequent" would have been a rather euphemistic word to describe the amount of contact they had – or those last, long three years of complete silence between them, during most of which Shinji had not actually expected to ever see his father again – He might as well have crashed his car into a tree and died without Shinji ever learning of it, never mind getting this scarring.

Then again, he might very well have gotten them after Shinji's arrival, it's not like he would have been told – If he was honest, the only way in which the distance between them had decreased since his move to Tokyo-3 was in the form that could be measured in kilometers – seen from any other angle, they were just every bit as far apart as they had been for the last ten years.

"What's the matter?" Misato asked, brusquely jolting her ward out of his musings.

Shinji felt rather red-handed in a self-conscious way, having been swayed by the illusion that she was too busy with Dr. Akagi to notice the wanderings of his gaze – he must have been eying the distance all too long, and far too intently.

"I-it's nothing…" Shinji lied.

He didn't want to talk about it right now.

But it was exactly this very resignation that never ceased to fuel his guardian's ire, and the only response she had for the averting of his eyes was the drawing of her index finger. "Listen up kid, there's nothing more conspicuous than someone trying too hard to be _in_ conspicuous! If you say 'it's nothing' with this kind of face, you leave me no choice _but_ to ask more questions! So what IS the matter, anyway?"

Since it was obvious that Misato was not going to let him off the hook without getting a proper answer, and he actually _wanted_ one, he finally caved in and spilled the truth: "I was just… I only just noticed… that my father's got those horrible burns on his palms…"

"Burns?" For once, Misato appeared somewhat relieved that he'd been chewing on a relatively 'harmless' question, on the other hand, it was quite obviously the first time she ever heard of those scars.

"…and I was wondering… just what happened to him…"

"I have no clue." Misato admitted, aiming a quizzical look at her friend.

"Do _you_ know anything about that?"

"It happened two months ago, before you arrived here." Dr. Akagi explained.

"At the time of the activation experiment during which EVA 00 went out of control… You have heard of it, haven't you?"

Although he didn't have the slightest idea, Shinji nodded, simply wanting to hear the rest of the story without further delays, deeply upset by the thought that having these things that he and Rei were being stuffed into going out of control _didn't_ seem to be all that uncommon an occurrence.

"It was horrible…" the scientist continued. "The pilot was trapped inside her entry plug."

"Ayanami Rei, right?" Shinji asked, requesting denial or confirmation. "The pilot at the time… must have been her, right?"

It had to be. Now, it was all starting to make sense.

Of course – as far as he knew, there hadn't been any other pilots before his arrival, right? So it could only have been her. That must be where her injuries came from! What any of this had to do with his father, though, didn't really occur to him, but Dr. Akagi was quick to enlighten him about the connection: "Yes. And Commander Ikari was the one who saved her life. He opened the overheated escape hatch with his bare hands…"

* * *

The Commander had already had an air of tension about him when he first ordered the beginning of the experiment, all the while pushing his glasses back up – not the reflective, tinted specimen that Shinji had seen him with ever since his arrival, but one with thick, clear lenses and a cheap and used looking plastic frame that almost seemed too big for his face.

Everywhere around him, the wild sound of typing into plastic keyboards resounded, as did the voices of the technicians as they were reporting to him how unit zero was slowly being activated, little by little.

The orange behemoth raised its cyclopean head, one by one, the lights on its head and arms lit up with color and brightness, as if the beast were going through the first stirrings of rising from a far too long sleep.

Standing between Fuyutsuki and Dr. Akagi, Ikari was observing the process, his expression dead serious.

So far, everything seemed to be to be going well… but not any further.

Shortly before reaching the absolute borderline, there was an error in the activation process – the error messages swarmed the screens faster than the technicians could report them – Most average citizens would probably have been unable to make any sense of words like "impulse feedback" or "uncontrolled increase of plug depth", but at very least when the orange titan began to move and strain against the contraptions that held it shackled to the wall, it was very obvious that something had gone terribly wrong.

Evangelion Unit 00 broke free of its chains; The machinery that had been designed to hold it in place was ripped out of the walls along with its moving limbs with the utmost ease.

Expulsing an acherontic screech, the beast started advancing through the chamber – but it wasn't a straight, directed march that the manmade titan was performing; It staggered, squirmed and grabbed its head that was so disproportionally small when compared to its body's overall proportion, bizarrely resembling a human being in the throes of a tortured dance of madness. But this did not mean that its haphazard movements were completely without a goal: It was very much aiming for the small window through which its creators were observing it, and it struggled desperately to keep its lone eye focused on it, over and over again, until it was able to send its fist flying straight into its target, shattering glass and bending the walls, leaving huge indentations with each of its strikes.

In spite of the shards of glass flying all around him, the ever persistent blows of the giant's fist, and the increasingly pleading warnings of the blonde scientist, Ikari Gendo remained right where he was, showing an outright unsettling lack of reaction.

But there was something else that very much _did_ make him react – The one thing about this Evangelion that still functioned as it was supposed to: The entry plug's auto-eject mechanism.

Unfortunately, it was never intended for indoor use.

"Damnit!" Ikari exclaimed, apparently honestly schocked – and not without reason. The very function that, in a normal battle, would have catapulted the pilot far away from the battlefield and thus from potential sources of danger, was now doing little more than make sure that the plug would be colliding with the roof of the experimentation chamber at its full speed, and the rockets that should have buffered its fall exhausted themselves as the plug scraped all the way across the roof of the experimentation chamber, screeching and emitting a fireworks of sparks, until it reached an unquiet stop in a corner, where it could no longer advance, letting it fall dead to the floor without anything left to cushion its fall.

"REI!" Ikari called, completely aghast, having lost all control over his usually tightly governed features.

It was hardly a surprise – the control rooms looked similar enough, almost the same situation, almost the same face…

But there was no helping it – The plug impacted the floor with a jarring screech of metal, actually _bounced,_ and only came to a permanent rest un the occasion of its second meeting with the floor.

Unit Zero had, in the meantime, resorted to bashing its head against the wall panels, again and again, until it finally stopped only because its power cable had been removed and its legs had been sprayed with bakelite that was now hardening into a solid block.

Most of the people in the control room breathed out long held-in sighs of relief once it was apparent that the EVA had gone completely silent, but Ikari wasn't among them – As far as he was concerned, that only meant the removal of one obstacle that was keeping him from dealing with the true object of his worries.

Now that his path was cleared, he instantly set into motion, as if something inside him had clicked into place after having been severed for a long time… as if he was back on that fateful day, still able to keep its disastrous events from unfolding.

 _"Not again."_ He felt it ring through his skull that felt emptied of everything else.

_"At least not Rei."_

At first, he sped over to the broken windows, leaning forward while holding on to the frames – The test chamber went down for at least sixty meters, he could forget about jumping.

As much as he wanted to indulge in the deceptive reassurance of a straight line, life had taught him very well how useful curves and meanders could often be to accomplish one's goal.

So he turned around without addressing a single word at anyone present, and rushed out of the room, leaving both Fuyutsuki and Akagi behind like some toys he'd lost interest in.

The latter could not help feeling a little wounded as she peeked at the entry plug below the arch of the giant's body, knowing all too well what was driving him right now.

She could hardly believe that he'd actually considered jumping all the way down, ans she could tell that he wouldn't have minded twisting an ankle in the process if it had been a survivable height – it was downright frightening, to see the usually stoic and in-control commander seized by the kind of impulse that made the whole body ebb and flow like the stormy sea, and it kept away any thoughts of following and approaching him.

As for Ikari himself, he had since pressed the next elevator-button, but ended up storming down the nearby stairs anyway as it took too long to arrive.

He kept speeding along his way, without any real awareness of his surroundings – he ended up using a maintenance entrance that he hasn't set foot in in his life, pretty inferring the quickest route and reading the signs on the way on autopilot.

He only learned that he'd broken down a door along the way when Fuyutsuki mentioned it a few days later.

His mind wasn't even saving information about it, or about that time he'd let go of his security card as he was trying to pull it through the matching slot next to the final armored door leading to the test chamber, so that he had to frantically gather it up from the floor, that's just how upset he was, that's how foolishly he'd surrendered himself to the illusion that this would somehow allow him to make something up to the wife and son he had failed so long ago.

When the door finale opened, he immediately started running, frenzied, almost tripping over his own feet, until he reached the entry plug, and immediately went for the emergency escape hatch – which was just about hot enough to very much _cook_ the upper layers of his skin before the very instant he'd touched them had turned from present into past.

With a sharp grunt of pain, Ikari instinctively recoiled, inadvertently sending his glasses flying to the floor in the process.

But that little bit of heat was by far not enough to make him hesitate – Without ever stopping to move, he forced his tortured fingers back to the burning hot metal through sheer force of will, and, through great pains and even greater exertion, turned the opening mechanism until the hatch was finally unlocked and the LLC streamed out onto the floor of the experimentation chamber.

Without allowing himself even a moment of respite, he forced the hatch open and leaned forward into the narrow, cylindrical plug.

_"Rei? Are you alright? REI!"_

The girl was still in her seat, weak, trembling, frightened, and judging by the rivulets of blood running down her face, injured as well, barely managing to turn in his direction and nod.

Ikari smiled.

"…thank goodness…"

It was only now that he took the time for a deep breath – As much as the heated air within the plug reeked of LCL, to him, it might as well have been a gentle sea breeze.

She was alive.

After a second's rest, the leader of NERV lifted his… subordinate? Wife? Tool? Memento? Creation? Prisoner? _Daughter?_ out of the entry plug, with a care and gentleness that no one would expect of such a strict and pragmatic man.

He stood there for a moment, holding her, before turning around to carry her out of the experimentation chamber, slowly, steadily, giving his breathing and his heartbeat the time to revert to a normal pace.

He was almost back in the control room, he met up with the emergency team that Akagi must have called at some earlier moment, handing them the girl and ending up being whisked away along with her on Akagi's insistence when both she and the paramedics noticed the state of his hands, which he had almost forgotten as the adrenaline hat yet to wear of.

It was only when the pain finally began setting in that he became aware of the absence of his glasses and the fact that he must have left them in the experimentation chamber – not that they would have been of much use to him.

The cheap plastic of their frame had melted slightly out of shape due to the heat from the LCL, and the lenses had cracked under the resulting tension.

* * *

" _My father_ did that?!" Shinji asked in disbelief.

Never in a hundred years would he have thought it possible that his father even had the _capacity_ to get himself injured for the sake of a mere underling. He had a hard time reconciling the man in this account with the huge, dark silhouette that had left him helplessly crying on that train station ten years ago.

It just refused to match…

"Yes. That's where he got his burns." Dr. Akagi confirmed once more, contradicting all the logic of Shinji's inner world.

He spent the rest of that conversation listening in silence as he struggled to process what he had just been told.

"It's hard to believe that all of this really happened…" Misato commented, looking everything but content. That the weapon that carried all of her hopes, _her plans for revenge, her wish for release_ had turned out to be something this unreliable tempted her uncomfortable thoughts.

"Of course, all record were deleted and the official report says something else, but that's what happened." Dr. Akagi concluded, distinctly more nonchalantly than Misato would have liked her to.

"Did you ever find out _why_ the EVA went out of control?" She inquired, hoping for something that could soothe her worries.

"Nothing certain, but we suspect that there was a mental instability in the pilot, and that this was the primary trigger."

"A mental instability? In _Rei_?"

"Yes. She may have been a lot more stressed than we expected."

"…but for what reason?"

"I don't know, but… possibly…"

Possibly, something in some corner of this perverse, unnatural abomination retained some memory of the person who had once ended its life, and decided to take a shot at crushing her daughter…

Oh no. Now she was starting to think like _her_.

Dr. Akagi could have slapped herself for even thinking of something like that.

"Possibly what?"

"Forget it. That cannot be."

"Either way, if no one really knows what exactly went wrong with the experiment, then why is EVA 00 being reactivated? Isn't that a bit imprudent?"

"The angels have returned, and unfortunately, the Evangelions are our only effective weapons."

"I know that, but…"

"I's not like was our first experiment with Rei and Unit Zero. We've already had countless of successful synchronizations. As soon as the neuronal interface is completely repaired…"

"She'll be sent into battle as well. I know…"

Even if there were good chances of the next activation experiment being a success, she just couldn't be happy about the fact that pretty soon, another mere teenager would be forced into being a soldier for the fate of the human race – with an evidentially unreliable weapon, at that.

"If everything goes well, we might already be able to deploy her against the next angel. She will be under your command, just like Shinji-kun. Here are her files."

Misato grabbed the folder and left.

* * *

Rei Ayanami.

Fourteen years old.

The first qualified candidate the Marduk institute was able to find.

The First Child, exclusive pilot of EVA 00, but also designated as backup pilot for EVA 01.

Unusually constant synchronization rate that was well within the borders of what could be used efficiently, but not particularly high compared to that of the Third or Second Children.

That was all.

No blood type, no family, no psychological profiles, no backstory, no information on the circumstances of her recruitment, not even a goddamn date of birth!

Compared to the thick bundles of paper that Misato had been given about Shinji and the Second Child, the file that Ritsuko had just handed her was decidedly thin. Until now, all she had seen of Rei was synchronization data she'd been sent for the sake of comparison with the other two children, and she had been curious about the contents of her personnel files for quite some time… at first, she had been honestly surprised that they would suddenly be allowed access to the papers just like that, but now that she had seen them, she could see _why_ they had let her see them – they simply didn't contain any significant new information whatsoever.

That is, except for one crucial detail that only deepened the mystery: Her birth parents weren't even given names, but listed as her current legal guardian was no one other than Commander Ikari himself.

Misato felt an unfathomable something taking shape in the back of her head… First, the Commander's own son gets recruited to pilot Unit One, and now, it turns out that his foster daughter has already been in the program for _years_ …

Wasn't that somehow… nepotism? And either way…

Spontaneous heroism notwithstanding, she found it rather unlikely that someone who'd deserted his own flesh and blood would take in a little girl out of pristine altruism alone.

But Misato had nothing tangible, no concrete evidence to prove that all of this wasn't just a huge, spontaneous agglomeration of coincidences with relatively simple explanations.

According to these papers, Rei had been accommodated on her own, just like they had initially planned to do with Shinji – They weren't exactly living together, so perhaps she was only listed under the Commander's guardianship for the sake of formalities… never mind that this organization was her only way of reclaiming her peace…

"Hey, Shinji-kun." She asked the pensive boy with a feigned tone of mild, casual interest.

She didn't really expect him to know anything, but it was worth a try.

"Have you, by any chance, ever met Rei or anyone in her family before you arrived here? Are the Ayanamis perhaps… distant relatives of yours, or friends of the family…"

"Why are you asking me that?" he replied, still seeming somewhat absent from the here and now – Misato could imagine all too well that the story about his father must have been occupying most of his capacity for thought – and her suspicious were not too far off the mark.

Of course he was pondering that account of his father's unprecedented heroism, the like of which his own son had not once witnessed before, but there was also the one name that was, once again, at the center of everything, and still left him no rest – Ayanami Rei.

She was the girl whom his father had saved. A stranger. A _complete stranger_ had been significant enough to him to get the skin burned off his hands, but Shinji, his own son, wasn't worth a speck of his attention…

And despite knowing all of this, Misato honestly thought _he_ would be the one to ask if she wanted to hear anything about Rei and his father's connections?!

To her credit, she quickly picked up on her young ward's disgruntlement.

"…I was asking just in case… It's not any sort of problem if you don't know anything…"

"…so you were already expecting me to be completely clueless… Sure… How could it be any different? It's not like my father and I have anything to do with each other…"

"That's not ... what I meant…"

"It's alright…" he said, in a tone that made it quite obvious that he was everything _but_.

Misato fought back the urge to let out a deep sigh, if only to desist from troubling him any further.

And to think that he had appeared fairly content this morning…

But, as having to deal with this boy had forced for acknowledge by now, it just wasn't all that simple, and the fact that he'd spent the last few days in a relatively good mood was no reason to declare victory on all of his problems.

Even if he'd appeared more stable since he went back to school, it didn't take all too much to throw him off his wafer-thin semblance of balance; Overall, he still remained a very fragile boy.

After all, he had come here for the purpose of getting closer to his father – and now, he had been brutally reminded of just how little progress he had made in that direction thus far.

"I don't know… of any friends of the family." was his quiet reply.

His voice just sounded depressed, but his anger found another way out as fingers had clawed themselves into the fabric of his pants. He didn't say it out loud, but Misato might as well have looked into his skull and read the unsaid words that were still burning to be heard.

He didn't know of any friends of the family, nor that his father and him had ever been anything resembling a family in the first place.

That was what he still wanted to say.

* * *

After a long drive most of which Shinji spent staring at the roof of the automobile, while Misato silently whacker her brains over both Shinji's frame of mind and the papers she had been handed, the two of them finally arrived at NERV HQ where Shinji was, as mentioned before, being expected for a test – And in the time he needed to change into his plug suit, walk to the cage, and be inserted into his Evangelion, Dr. Akagi, the last missing participant, had also arrived just in time to get started, still having had some data left to sort through at the grounds of the last battle.

With everything ready, they wasted no time to activate the EVA and connect it to Shinji who, once again, kept his turbid thoughts to himself and meekly followed along with everything that was asked of him – the moment the interface inside the plug activated was also the first time Shinji got a good look at Unit Zero which was fixated in the same room. Both EVAs were about half submerged in coolant; Rei had apparently arrived before him, so he hadn't gotten to see her before the experiment started, as she had already been sitting inside her plug at the time he had been climbing into his own. Much like his own EVA, the one-eyed bio-machine bore an undeniable resemblance to the mythological demons of old, as much as the layout of the armor plates and the structure of the head were distinctly different from those of the violet giant that he still couldn't comfortably think of as "his", especially since both EVAs appeared to have at least one thing in common: Their history of going out of control. Until now, he'd at least felt somewhat safe during these tests, but now he knew that these things were even liable to go berserk during a _routine experiment_ …

At this point, he decided to lean back and try thinking of something else – nervous, chaotic thoughts were hardly going to help his synch ratio.

So he closed his eyes and made an effort to breathe slowly and deliberately, as Dr. Akagi had advised him during his training, but it didn't seem to be working.

Relaxing was just not something that Ikari Shinji had any talent for.

It just wasn't possible for him, not when he felt it all around him, not air, but a warm liquid with a slight tint of an unnerving scent to it, it just didn't allow him for forget a moment where exactly he was, not in a test plug, not in a simulation body, but the real deal, the actual, physical Evangelion…

Right now, everything about the connection to the EVA felt like it usually did, but how would he know if it wasn't just the same for Ayanami until the very moment Unit Zero went out of control? Yes, exactly. Ayanami was here, too, not too far away, deep within her own EVA. She had sustained all these horrible injuries in the last incident… For now, they appeared to have completely healed, but soon, she was going to be sent into battle… and that was a thought that Shinji didn't like at all… he could still see her before him, being wheeled past him on a gurney, weak, broken, struggling for breath…

Just the thought that this fragile, unfortunate girl would be sent into the kinds of battles he'd had to endure so far, and suffer just as he had… Barely touching that particular rotten cluster of memory was enough to send shivers down his neck… and if he combined that with imagining Rei, trembling, bleeding and whimpering in pain, as she had been during their first meeting, and him, too, both their bodies broken on the ground… he just didn't want this, he flat out refused to imagine this any further.

Just like back then, he felt compelled to take her into his arms and protect her from all that, but for that, he would have needed strength. He would have needed to be a good fighter… and he didn't know how that would be possible for him. As useless as he was now, it was very much unavoidable that she would end up being deployed, and thus, inevitably injured once again.

His measly amount of "strength" and "courage" wasn't even enough to even _talk_ to her.

Much like his father, Ayanami Rei would probably always remain a faraway existence for him…

Ayanami… Rei…

Her name was also what finally brought Shinji's thoughts back to the here and now. No, not her name, her designation. The First Child.

She was mentioned in one of the many announcements that were often heard over the numerous speakers in NERV headquarters. They were currently… transferring the First Child's test data to the Magi? What, it was already over?

Well, not quite, it was only over for Rei, which made sense she had been present here a little earlier, but still, he must have dozed off quite a while ago.

How on earth he had managed that in his tense and anxious state was a mystery to him, but it might be related to the fact the it was so… warm and cozy inside the Evangelion, as grotesque as it seemed to describe this horrifying abomination of modern science with that kind of adjectives. But that wasn't all. After his unscheduled little nap, he felt strangely at ease, not just disproportionally well-rested for the amount of time, but somehow… invigorated to the microscopic level, as if he'd been to some warm, comfortable place where someone soft and caring had consoled gently consoled him… but now that he was awake, the mere concept of having such associations for the stuff of his nightmares left him creeped out to the point of nausea, and the sticky, stinking quality of the LCL everywhere on him and inside him didn't help in the slightest, sending his brain into overdrive in search of some logical explanation for this other than the possibility that he was slowly going stark raving mad.

Perhaps he had dreamt of something that he could no longer remember clearly, something that explained this. Perhaps he had confused this place for something else in his half-conscious state. But now he couldn't help being wide awake, and noted, amongst other things, that Rei had already been let out of her EVA – at very least, her entry plug had already been withdrawn from Unit Zero…

In a spur of spontaneous curiosity, he made the interface zoom in without thinking too much about what he was doing.

And there she was.

He found her on that catwalk-like contraption in-front of her EVA.

She had bent down to get something from a small compartment that served as a deposit for the pilot's belongings, then went back to her plug and squatted down to get something else.

By implication, she was wearing her plugsuit.

While it certainly wasn't the first time that he'd seen it on her, but it was not quite the same sort of impression when she wore it covered in bandages without the parts corresponding to the arms, and couldn't really move around in it like she could now. That said, the full suit with its stark white color was not much less effective than the bandages in making her appear like an unspeakably fragile porcelain doll.

With this clothing pressed this tightly to the surface of her skin, she looked as if the slightest touch, or even sound could make her pop out of existence like a soap-bubble.

Lost in fascination, his eyes unwaveringly followed the every motion of her petite body.

Once again, his thoughts circled around the reasons for her seemingly constant solitude… until he noticed that, for once, she was not alone at all.

Out of the corner of his eye, Shinji noticed the approaching, daunting silhouette of a tall man in a dark uniform.

Wait, that was… that couldn't be, could it?

But it was.

_His Father!_

What in the world was his father doing there, right on this metal catwalk thing?

That's the place where you would expect some simple maintenance technician to show up, not, well, their big boss guy.

As soon as Ayanami noticed his presence, she eagerly turned around and excitedly skipped towards him with an almost playful elegance that Shinji had never noticed at school, just like a little girl rushing to welcome her beloved Daddy after a long day of work.

Yes, she actually _jumped_ to bridge a small height difference between the contraption right next to the plug and the main catwalk, and soon, she was standing right in front of him, generously accompanying the apparent steam of her words with gracile hand gestures.

Shinji was quickly taken by a wave of disbelief, but her actions simply eschewed any other description, it just contradicted everything he had seen of this girl so far.

That alone would have been enough to seriously confuse the young EVA pilot, but what happened next honestly shocked him to the bone – She smiled. She seemed downright elated, the expression of delight just wouldn't disappear from her lips as they kept forming new words with increasing enthusiasm.

And the craziest thing of it all was… his father actually _smiled back_.

There it was, before his very eyes, a most impossible thing: Ikari Gendo, looking another person firmly in the eye with a pleased, if not outright _proud_ smile on his edgy, worn face.

Shinji felt as if the ground had just been pulled out from underneath him, flailing, tumbling down like a leaf in the wind, a footloose tatter on an inevitable downward spiral he had absolutely no say over.

In the sudden, vicious grip of this paralyzing helplessness, he could not stop to watch from afar through his interface how these two appeared to get along splendidly, cut off from their happy, harmonious world he was not allowed into.

He could not hear what they were saying, but their faces spoke whole encyclopedias.

They were smiling, not just a little, but, as far as it was within his abilities to tell, moved by genuine pleasance, displayed for everyone to see.

Ultimately, his father's eyes ended up taking up a gentle, almost devoted expression, which immediately resulted in Rei positively _beaming_ like a newborn star.

By then, it had become all but obvious.

They were not just smiling, they were smiling _together._

Rei… and his father.

Shinji couldn't think of a time where he'd seen _either_ of them smiling before this very day…

Of course Commander Ikari Gendo wasn't the type of person who'd get himself burned for some random subordinate.

But Rei wasn't just a subordinate;

He was.

He, Shinji, was the stranger, the forgotten distant relative, the random subordinate.

 _He_ was the one who didn't belong, the leftover spare, the "other" child.

He was the one who wasn't a friend of the family.

Shinji let himself sink back into his seat in resignation.

What point was there in any of this, again?

If he was honest with himself, hadn't he stayed here out of the naïve hope that maybe, just maybe, his father would finally acknowledge him and let him take his rightful place as his only son? Well, right now, that spot appeared to be quite taken, his father did not look like someone who would have any use or need or reason to miss another Child.

This just wasn't fair. That man was supposed to be _his_ father, damnit, and as small a comfort as he may have been, he was the only family that Shinji had left on this world.

HE was supposed to be his son, HE should be the one getting that appreciative smile…

How could he smile at HER when he had abandoned his own flesh and blood like some bag of trash?

It was not like could ever have been capable to resent or even hate Rei on the basis of something like jealous feelings – if his thought were to as much as stray in that direction, he would see her bandaged on the ground again, together with the associated memory of feeling that urge help her somehow, and a whole new icing of deep shame.

What sort of scum could even consider resenting a person capable of such bravery as attempting to fight a giant monster in such a pitiable state? It's not like any of this was her fault.

Still, Shinji couldn't help but feel like he had been slapped in the face.

If this girl over there was Ikari Gendo's precious child…

Then who was Shinji?

Then what was he doing on this world?

What was he doing here?

Soon after, he was told that the experiment was over and allowed to leave his entry plug.

When he stepped onto the catwalk right outside the plug, he was all alone, there was no one, no one waiting for him.

He hurried to get to wherever he had left his SDAT player, or at least to Misato.

He didn't really care either way, right now, he would be fine with anything that would make enough noise to chase away the thoughts of what he had just witnessed.

Although Misato did her best to coax some sort of conversation out of him on the ride back home, his contributions consisted entirely of one-liners, and once they arrived, he went straight for his room and remained cooped up in there for the remainder of the day. Even the resident house-penguin appeared somewhat concerned and attempted to cheer him up, but unfortunately, PenPen's effort remained equally fruitless.

In the end, both the bird and its owner decided to call it a day, concede their defeat, and hope that Shinji's friends would be able to cheer him up tomorrow. And if that didn't help, Misato would try teasing him a bit, he was bound to stop brooding eventually and get all flustered as he was forced into the defensive position.

After all, Ritsuko would be coming over tomorrow, and along with her, countless of potential ways to distract the boy.

Sighing, she opened the can of beer she had just gotten from her fridge.

She would have thought that after all this time, she would at least have developed something of a gut feeling for how to get through to that kid, but she was already suspecting that it probably just didn't work that way.

Either that, or it was simply proof that she wasn't his real mother after all.

* * *

There were people on this world who could feel down when they hid away under their blankets, and see the world an entirely different way when they jumped out of bed the next day… but Shinji wasn't one of them.

He'd marched off to school on time, but that was already the best she could say about – he'd served her breakfast, but barely even touched his own and held his sweet little head downcast the entire time in his usual way.

By now, Misato had wondered whether there had been any concrete incident that she didn't know about. He'd been somewhat melancholy since yesterday morning, but if she really thought about it, his mood had not quite hit freezing temperatures until after the synch test.

Even with someone like him, there had to be some sort of cause for this sort of shift – or had she just significant underestimated his lability? Never mind the pesky little problem that no one knew when the next angel might attack…

She hadn't made peace with the thought of sending him into battle like that…

Once again, the sought solace in a nice can of cold beer.

All of this would probably be significantly less frustrating if there were some sort of measuring instrument to gauge her success or lack thereof.

* * *

In the meantime, Shinji was walking to school as he pondered once again was he was even doing here, what it was that he came to search for, and what point there was in staying here.

His father and Ayanami.

Their smiling faces just wouldn't disappear from his mind, no matter how hard he tried to concentrate on the pavement before his feet.

His father had only needed him because Rei had been injured, right?

She had recovered by now – So what was he still doing here?

It was quite possible that his father would soon lose all interest in him and just send him away again without anything between them having changed- no, even if he were to stay here, the chances of anything changing were looking less existent by the day.

As he was going his way, Shinji noticed a familiar voice – no, 'familiar' would probably have been an overstatement, given that he'd only met it its owner yesterday, but he did recognized.

It was Mitsurugi, alongside an adult male with unusually long, dark hair who was leaning on a car that was parked by the roadside. Shinji recognized him as well – wasn't he that technician that his father had spoken with yesterday?

Shinji might not have recognized the man if he hadn't been wearing that same combination of a beige NERV uniform and a lab coat.

"Excuse me if I ask, but… Won't you be running late for work?" Mitsurugi asked, hesitantly. The man, who was appeared significantly more carefree, just shook his head. "Nope. Don't you worry, Nagato, there's an access route right next to your school, after all it's the same one the Children are enrolled in… You're in the same class, aren't you?"

"Yes… they are…" he confirmed, without much of a tone to his voice.

"And? What are they like? I don't mean to tattle, but I do feel somewhat obligated to show some interest in the people who are saving the gluteii maximi of everyone in this city on a regular basis, including yours and mine…" The long-haired technician chuckled softly.

"I… briefly spoke with Ikari-san the other day." Mitsurugi replied quietly.

"He appears to be a nice person, if somewhat sparse with words…"

"Sparse with words, heh? Sounds like his old man. You see, the Commander isn't exactly the most frisky person on the planet either… But then again, the higher-ups are _all_ quite gifted at the art of poker faces. You should see the leader of the operations division… not the mention the boss of mine, our dear Dr. Akagi… They're quite a collection of hardcore workaholics… But I guess that's how they got to be the head honchos to begin with… Seriously, it's like the only normal person is subcommander Fuyutsuki, but I don't really work with him that much…"

If only they knew. Misato's 'professionalism' was something that she discarded along with her uniform when she went home. Not that these two had any way of knowing that.

Only now did Shinji realize that he had stopped in his tracks when he'd realized that they had been talking about _him_.

He was still a sizeable distance away from them, though.

"My impression was that Ikari-san… I mean, the _younger_ Ikari-san, is just shy more than anything else…"

"Just shy?" The technician raised an eyebrow. "Well, in that case, the family resemblance does seem to be a bit more limited than I thought… But I guess the two of us should probably be quiet in that regard, we're not a prime example of family resemblance either. Either way, I expect you to be nice to our Third Child…" The older Mitsurugi playfully presented his index finger.

"He's the only son of the guy who decides my salary!"

"I… I will, father."

Mitsurugi's father laughed.

"Don't take everything so dead serious, Nagato…. And I'd really appreciate it if you finally came up with some more… pleasant way to refer to me. How about calling me 'Papa', 'Daddy' or anything like that? I could even live with that newfangled 'Old Man', but please, spare me that high and mighty 'father'.

…and let's get going already, or the both of us might _really_ wind up arriving too late…

Oh, and Nagato? Did you meet the First Child as well? You know, the girl?"

Shinji stayed where he was and didn't budge an inch until the Mitsurgis had vanished into the distance.

He didn't want to spend the rest of the way being reminded that he would probably never have this kind of conversation with his own father.

These two had been smiling to each other as well… just like Rei and his own male parent.

For a little while, he just stood there, deciding whether he even still felt like going to school, but he didn't feel like going back and facing Misato's disappointment, so he continued walking in the end.

When he eventually reached his classroom, he already found both Mitsurugi and – as usual – Ayanami alone at their desks. The former was spending the time before the first period like he had spent most of his breaks yesterday, mostly alone, solving sudokus when he wasn't reading through his schoolwork. Shinji had already noticed that he often participated in class and had a pretty solid grip on the subject matter, which was significantly more than the Third Child could claim for himself.

Shinji made no further attempts to talk to him today – he just couldn't summon up the energy to do it, and he was certain that he would only end up blowing it, since the bitter aftertaste of witnessing his conversation with his father left him feeling rather awkward if he as much as thought about his newest classmate.

Needless to say, he didn't talk to Rei either. Not today, not today of all days. Today, if that was possible, he felt even less up to it than he usually did.

He _did_ watch her, though. Drawn in by some sort of higher power, like a moth that could never hope to understand the chemical reactions that gave birth to flames, he found his eyes circling around the back of her head, her face averted from all of the classroom and all that took place within it.

And he didn't feel like anything was going to change between him and her anymore that between him and his father. He would never find the courage to talk to her.

He never thought that there would ever be a day when he would be grateful for the history teacher's usual boring speech, but now, it had come.

The endless droning about Second Impact did at least create some sort of background noise to drown out those gloomy thoughts, he no longer wanted, and whatever hijinks Touji and Kensuke were plotting while the old teacher wasn't looking only added to the convenient distractions, but the two of them did not fail to notice that their newest friend was notably sparse in his participation: "Hey, Ikari! What's the matter with you today? You look like you'll summon one of these cartoon clouds at any minute…" Touji commented.

"I… do…?"

"Yep. Don't bother with denying it, it's quite obvious." Kensuke stated, deliberately wording it in a more casual tone, in the hope that perhaps it would rub off on Shinji. But he and Touji had personally witnessed quite enough to have reasons to be genuinely worried. Still, Kensuke chose to downplay that for now. "So… you're some uber cool elite combat pilot, you live with Misato-san and half the girls in our class have the hots for you. What could possibly bad enough for _you_ to show up here with such a long face."

"I don't think any of that is as great as you probably imagine…"

"What, including having the girls fawn over you?"

"Why would anyone be _fawning_ over me of all people? There's nothing interesting about me, apart from being an EVA pilot… at least you have some muscles… and Aida is smart and always seems to know lots of things…"

"An innocent lamb, white like snow…" Touji remarked. "You really _are_ clueless, Ikari."

"This judgmental society tends to see our hobbies as rather girl-repelling." Kensuke added as an explanation of sorts.

" _Our_ hobbies?"

"Oh, right. In your case, it's your big potty mouth."

"WHAT did you just say…? Never mind. Anyway, Ikari, just in case you haven't noticed, you _do_ seem to have some popularity with the ladies. Just not with _all_ ladies, right?" Touji eyed him with a wide grin.

"What… do you mean by that?"

Kensuke promptly elaborated on Touji's hypothesis: "You're experiencing a little bit of lovesickness, aren't you?"

"N-No, that's… not it…" Shinji answered, somewhat rattled.

It shouldn't surprise him that those two would blame his melancholy on such a "mundane" explanation, but…

"Oh yes it is! Did you really think that we didn't notice where you were staring whenever one of us stops speaking for as much as half a second? Looks like Ayanami's boobies really did a number on you, man."

"A-Ayanami? I- It's not like this! …really not…"

But Touji didn't even leave Shinji the time to come up with any excuses: "Nah. We might have bought that story yesterday, but you've had your head permanently pointing into her general direction ever since. You can be honest with us, you know? I admit, she's definitely not by type, but she's not _that_ bad. I mean, she _does_ have a nice butt. If you're lucky, it might turn out that she isn't weird or antisocial at all, just…uhm… really shy."

" _Really, really_ shy." Kensuke added, not really believing in that possibility. "But come hell or high water, as your friends, we totally respect your choice (and personal taste), and feel obliged to help you in any way we can."

"It _really_ isn't that way!" Shinji insisted, beginning to look somewhat helpless.

"Then what _IS_ the matter?" they both demanded to know in unison.

"I… I don't want to talk about it right now…"

At that, the two of them decided to let sleeping dogs lie – The odds of Shinji actually spilling the beans did not look particularly high anymore, anyway – and decided to shift the topic of conversation to "mathematics", since the teacher in question had this pesky habit of subjecting one or two unlucky student to an impromptu interrogation at the beginning of the period, apparently to motivate the students to do more studying.

Touji had not really quite grasped just what exactly the teacher had spent the last lesson babbling about, and Kensuke, who usually tended to be decidedly better with all this school work, was just as clueless since he'd been busy assembling a plastic facsimile of a war plane that day, leaving it to Shinji to try and explain the new topic to them, although his rather muddleheaded attempts to do so only seemed to deepen their confusion.

Thankfully the teacher ended up picking someone else that day – Ayanami and Mitsurugi, to be exact – rendering all the fuss moot. The one listed first here was also the first one to be called to the blackboard by the teacher. She just walked to the front without a sound, picked up a piece of chalk, turned her back to everyone else in this room, took a short look at the equation and then proceeded to solve it, without providing the teacher or the rest of the class with any sort of explanation for what she was doing.

After she was done with the equations, she scribbled a minimalistic diagram beneath them, on which she represented time with the y-coordinate instead of the usual x .

As a matter of course, Shinji was observing each of her movements.

The teacher notably needed a little time to inspect the numbers that now filled most of the blackboard and retrace everything she had done, but after that, he seemed surprised.

"Now look at this! You _can_ do this after all… How come you never raise your hand during the lessons if you're this good at it?"

The teacher did not really appear to have been expecting an answer, nor did he leave the blue-haired girl any time to formulate one. "Well, anyway. Good job, Ayanami-san. Please return to your seat. Mitsurugi-kun? You're next. Could you please solve the third problem on page 66?"

Unlike Ayanami, Mitsurugi _did_ provide ample explanations and made an effort to turn to look at his classmates once in a while, but it was noticeably something he had to consciously remind himself of. Standing in front of a crowd didn't come to him naturally, and for the most part, he still didn't show his spectators much aside from the back of his bandaged head.

He scribbled the equations unto the table without having to pause and think as much as once, and was able to answer any and all questions the teacher directed at him.

What this event also revealed, however, was that Mitsurugi had notably bad handwriting – Even the teacher needed a while to decipher the small writing which appeared to be squeezing itself into a corner of the blackboard, but in the end, he was very pleased with the results, and proceeded to dismiss Mitsurugi and start the lesson.

The rest of the school day passed in a blur and very soon, it was time for Shinji to head home – he at least wanted to dust the apartment off before Dr. Akagi arrived for her visit – Leaving it to Misato was futile.

At times, he felt like he was _her_ guardian, and not the other way around… At least he wouldn't be alone with her this afternoon, so she would have someone else to pour her exaggerated happy-go-lucky attitude.

It wasn't that he didn't like her, but right now, he just wasn't in the right mood to deal with her. It was certainly her good right to act as cheerful as she wanted inside her own four walls, but the last thing Shinji wanted to be confronted with when he was feeling drained and depressed was a drunk, scantily-clad woman trying to "cheer him up", all the while reminding him all the more that he had absolutely _nothing_ to cheer about, despite her good intentions. Those only made him feel guilty for thinking about her like that, that almost sounded like like he'd prefer her to be just as miserable as he was, or that was at least what he had feared it could be mistaken for.

Or perhaps, he was the one making that mistake, or a different one.

* * *

"What IS this?" Dr. Akagi demanded to know.

"Curry." Shinji answered as he distributed the untrustworthy-looking substance onto the plates of everyone present.

The fake blonde, for once without her lab coat or bright, ruby-red lipstick, had known her old friend long enough to mistrust her culinary skills, but the shapeless paste she had just been served deserved to be revered as its very own kind of evil.

There was nothing on this table that hadn't been wrapped in plastic shortly before.

"Are you still living off that instant garbage?" she asked in disbelief.

But Misato's perception appeared to have its unique filters and mechanisms that apparently allowed her to completely tune out her colleague's advice whenever she pleased.

"Guests aren't supposed to complain." was her only retort, and even that was half-serious at best; With that out of the way, she turned to Shinji who was already leaning toward her general direction with the curry bowl and the ladle in his hands.

"…Misato-san?"

"Just put it in here." Misato instructed, removing the plastic plate she'd used as an improvised covering for a bowl on instant noodles that she'd already treated to a dose of hot water minutes before, before taking the entire bowl and proceeding to present it to Shinji with both her hands.

Although there was still some steam rising out of the cup, the brick-like shape initially formed by the noodles had already dissolved, so they looked just about ready to be eaten.

Obviously confused, Shinji blinked at his guardian. She wanted him to put the curry… into the noodle cup? If she said so, it should be okay enough for her, but he was not quite sure whether she was actually serious.

"A-Are you sure?"

"Yes, I am! Why shouldn't I be? This tastes great!" she claimed with a big smile on her face.

Shinji decided to humor her and give her what she wanted, saving any attempts of making sense of it for some point in the indeterminate future.

"You see, you can't have that kind of flavor with a cup-a-noodle alone." Misato commented, perhaps in an attempt to justify herself to her commensals without having to remove her aggressively-enthusiastic smile.

"My secret tip is to only use half as much water as it says on the packaging!"

After stirring the witches' cauldron of a noodle cup one last time, she contently began stuffing her 'creation' into her mouth.

Despite, or perhaps exactly _because_ of her apparently blissful facial expression, both Shinji and Dr. Akagi began to feel rather apprehensive about trying their own portions – and not without reason, as they soon learned.

"Misato cooked this, didn't she?"

"Oh, you noticed?" Misato answered with her mouth still full, either fully missing or deliberately ignoring the evident overtone of frustration in her friend's voice.

It took all of the scientist's self-control to maintain the smile she had put on for the sake of politeness and refraining from spitting it all out right then and there.

Distantly, she asked herself whether the currently known laws of physics even allowed for the possibility of _instant food_ getting this horribly screwed up.

"Next time you invite me, please do it when it's Shinji-kuns's turn to cook."

In the face of that sheer shower of 'praise' it was recieving, the third Member of the Katsuragi household pondered whether he should even touch the contents of his food bowl.

Just in the next room, the hot-springs penguin was eying the beer can and curry-topped rice he had been left with with a somewhat uncertain glance.

Did his Mistress really expect him to eat this?

Well, PenPen decided to be considerate and just give it a chance, not knowing that the first beakfull would already suffice to send him on a roadtrip to the land of dreams.

Sadly, this epic battle of Curry versus Bird remained unknown to future generations and forgotten by this cruel, ungrateful world. The only sign of it to ever reach the three humans in the living room was the soft 'thud' of an unsung hero's defeat, which only Shinji – a kindred spirit – ever took note of, and quickly dismissed as his imagination, concluding that his strained nerves must be playing tricks on him lately.

"Living with her must be hard. You might want to look into finding another place to stay…" Dr. Akagi advised, appearing to feel somewhat sorry for the young pilot.

"I've gotten used to it by now…" Shinji replied in a neutral tone, opting for a 'diplomatic' answer.

"Exactly!" Misato added, noticeably irked. "You should never underestimate a human's ability to adapt to new situations! Besides, if he did move-" She paused briefly for a small gesture that both Dr. Akagi and Shinji, its intended recipient, easily recognized as a request for another beer. "-he'd have to go through a lot of bothersome formalities, given that he only just got his new security card."

That particular cue distinctly got a specific reaction out of Dr. Akagi.

"Speaking of which…"

She reached into her handbag.

"I have a little favor to ask of you, Shinji-kun."

"Uhm… what do you need?" the boy in question asked as he handed Misato another can of her favorite alcoholic beverage.

"This is Rei's new security card." The scientists explained as she handed Shinji the small plastic rectangle. "I forgot to give it to her earlier. Could you stop by at her place on the way to headquarters and give it to her?"

That wasn't _exactly_ the truth, but since the excuse was so ordinary and inconspicuous, and the truth so unlikely, Misato was not likely to even consider the possibility of foul play.

Not even Akagi herself could fathom why the commander had asked her to find some arbitrary pretext to bring Shinji in contact with Rei.

He had mentioned it rather casually at the end of a longer conversation about current next courses of action, but unfortunately, she had long since been forced to learn that Ikari never did anything without a reason. If it was any other man, one could have suspected some explanation as harmless and innocent as that he was worried about the respectively rather modest and nonexistent social circles of his son and foster daughter and aimed to catch to birds with one stone, or that he simply thought they should meet since they would soon be working together, and that it would only be natural for them to form some relationship, given Rei's… identity.

But not if the one ordering this was Ikari Gendo, oh no. Dr. Akagi could only guess what he might have in mind, but it could be nothing less than to stir the wheels of fate.

"That's a very pretty picture of Rei, isn't it?" In the end, the apartment's owner and her ear-to-ear Cheshire cat grin were the ones to interrupt the thoughts of both Shinji and Dr. Akagi.

In the matter of a split second, the boy who, up until now, had been studying the card, or more accurate, the picture of Rei embedded into it in silence and melancholy, was blushing furiously and more than a bit frantic, mostly about denying the… theory that had just been cooked up one time too many. First Touji and Kensuke, and now Misato, too!

"It's not… like that…"

But now that she had gotten something other than dreary resignation or purely habitual pleasantries out of him, Misato sure wasn't going to let up: "My, my, Shin-chan. Could we be having a little bit of a crush?"

"N-NO!"

Misato giggled. "Then why did you get so flustered? Hey, at least now you have an official excuse to visit her apartment!"

"Please stop teasing me."

"Oh, but I love teasing you." Misato responded. Shinji's complaints had only served to heighten her mood, if anything – if he was actually complaining, and not just retreating into apathy, that little raincloud over his head was probably already dissipating.

"…you're really fun to tease-" She added, still fighting the last giggles. "-since you always explode right away."

"Like you?" Akagi countered.

Digging herself , Misato looked anything but amused at that comment, but before she could snap back at her more level-headed friend, Shinji drew the attention of both women to himself when he, still looking at Rei's picture on the card, finally revealed the reason why he had been doing so in first place: "It's just that I've come to notice that… we barely know anything about each other, even if we are the only two EVA pilots in the world…"

 _That_ was what he had spent all this time brooding about?

Misato instantly asked herself why he hadn't just asked, but she could pretty much answer herself.

Shinji's question, however, was answered by Dr. Akagi, as she hid her true feelings behind her smile and a hand attached to the fingers she ran through her hair as if to disguise its true feelings: "…She's a nice girl. But unfortunately, she's just like your father… she's just not good at it."

"Not good… at what?"

"Living."

* * *

_Not good… at living?_

Shinji couldn't quite make sense of just what she meant. There were some unspeakable impossibilities that were brought to his consciousness by that phrase, but nothing concrete would make itself assemble. The supposed similarity to his father, counterintuitive as it may have been at first, was far easier to see once he put his mind to it. While he had never quite been able to put a label on the ghostly, disconnected presence in both his mind and NERV HQ, his father was certainly –shamefully – unfortunately – inevitably –to be found in the corners and cellars that negative presences were supposed to swarm and be found it, so it took a while for the thoughts of both of them to come together as something in the same sphere, in the end it was surprisingly, _disconcertingly_ easy to integrate this new and unknown soul from the freshest memories of present that had yet to become past into the blurry, vague, lightless constructions of his childhood, like she always had her secret hideout here whom which she snuck out to show her form where the higher, upper, newer layers of his being were formed enough to properly perceive her; Or maybe, absurd and natural as it sounded at the same time, there was some hidden high speed lane between right now and back then, the diffuse beginning and the tip of his memory where it decayed into countless expectations and possibilities for the future, like a tunnel moving through the center of the earth, straight across that innermost darkness he never dared to touch

But be it through slow path or shortcut, it was possible to imagine those two next to each other; After all, they often were physically seen in each other's company.

He supposed that they were both taciturn, serious people who kept their mysteries to themselves; Their expressions changed about just as often, with Rei probably just barely trumping her guardian, but no other fourteen year old , or even any other female that Shinji could think of right off the bat.

Still, none of that seemed anywhere extreme enough to merit that last sentence, especially not in the light of them being involved in a war (He was now involved in a war, too. It hit him bluntly, there. That was not a conclusion he had wanted to draw, nor a thought he wanted to think-) …"Not good at living." …that sounded rather…drastic, didn't it?

Once again, now in the twilight of the hallway of Misato's apartment building, just outside their door, he made a futile attempt to suck out all the answers to the world from that small picture of a single girl. She was staring directly into the camera, with a firm, mechanically serious expression reminiscent of a soldier, unrelenting ready for and determined to face just about everything one could ask of her, and there was something about its stony hardness that indeed reminded him of his father.

He had smiled at her, back when they talked.

Shinji could not recall a single memory of his father smiling at _him_.

What sort of person was she? What did her crimson eyes so firmly believe in as to be willing to challenge an abomination that had him terrified out of his mind, in a half-dead state, at that?

From where did she take that immense, bottomless strength that he was not merely beyond his own capacity, but far outside the edges of his comprehension?

Who in the world was this girl who had been worthy of the Commander's smile?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) This particular version of Shinji's "Third-Impact-Dream" was inspired by "Last B", an alternative draft for the final scene of EoE. I think I speak for all of us when I say that I'm very grateful that Anno chose to use the other one.
> 
> (2) If I had the funds etc. to assign him a VA, it would probably be Yuka Nishigaki, also known for doing Yuu in "Guilty Crown". That last line where he goes "I'd like to see… how you resist despair…", that's it. Of course, this just describes the quality/sound of the voice, not it's tone/use, Nagato doesn't actually talk like that, not being the eldritch representation of some evil organization or anything XD His father Minoru would probably have a Crispin-Freeman-Type of voice XD On the subject, Asahina can be imagined as an Atsuko Tanaka type of voice, except perhaps a tad more subdued and less overtly awesome… dunno.
> 
> (3) Yes, look it up if you don't believe me, Shamshel's 'Laser arms' remained intact in 1.11. What a great opportunity to include the 'analysis scene', which, after all, is all but trivial.
> 
> (4) In the next chapter, Shinji is going to have his very own encounter with the mystery girl we've heard so much about. Of course, with him being the resident cosmic chew toy, that can only mean one thing: There will be slaps and hilarious incidents involving lack of clothes… but not necessarily in the most usual combination. Stay tuned for chapter 12: [A friend of the family]


	13. 12: [A friend of the Family]

_Born in motion_

_Forward is your only course_

_Plunge the gaping edge_

_Fallen into flesh and bone_

_You could've been_

_Caught up in_

_All those empty odds_

_Alive but not awake_

_Promises_

_Am I seeping through?_

_Are you an angel_

_Whose ship ran aground?_

_Can't get a grip_

_On this planet you've found_

_Never to look down_

_Trade in your halo for feet on the ground_

_-Three, 'Alien Angel'_

* * *

The neighborhood that Ayanami Rei lived in was… not what Shinji had expected.

The closer he appeared to come to the address Misato had given him, the deeper he had sunken into a jungle of tall, abandoned concrete buildings.

He had never strayed here before, but he recalled the occasional people complaining about how these structures detracted from the general appearance of the city – If Shinji recalled his teacher's unending lectures correctly, the origin of these 'unsightly blemishes' dated back to Second Impact itself – after the calamity, there were hardly any two bricks left on each other – Everything that hadn't been moved down by the Earthquakes had been crushed beneath the tsunamis, billions of people died – and even most of the survivors were rendered homeless or forced to make do with ruins.

When reconstruction finally arrived after a dark age of countless wars and conflicts, it was decided to dispose of the debris that had once been Hakone like dust to be wiped away, for it to be reborn as Neo Tokyo-3, and as in many other cities, this rebirth had rolled over the land in the shape of a wave of steel and concrete – aesthetic concerns had been of little interests to the then still new and unstable government, at least as long as the streets were still a stew of dirty dissatisfied homeless beggars just waiting to erupt into riots.

The most pressing aim had been to provide the bulk of the survivors with stable roofs and working sanitation at the lowest possible cost.

The appearances of the city districts that still dated back to that chaotic time were merely a reflection of these circumstances: Wide streets framed by seemingly endless rows of identical, rectangular concrete buildings in uniform anthracite grey, disappearing into the horizon like a long row of domino bricks.

The row that Rei was supposed to live in was no different.

Other than the street signs and house numbers, Shinji could hardly make out any differences between the buildings, let alone the individual tiny apartments that made them up, but with the tall, homogenous buildings towering around him, he couldn't shake off these encroaching feelings of insignificance, nor the question of why anyone could possibly chose to live her by their own, free will, especially not _here_ , at the very edge of not just the city, but even this forlorn district itself, in the outermost row of buildings that still remained – By the looks of it, there had been further building rows at a time, but by now, all that testified for their existence were piles of rubble; Now that Tokyo-3 had grown into a blossoming, well-fortified metropolis, those colorless makeshift building bricks had served their purpose and were being demolished at the least sluggish place that the city's perpetually strained finances allowed. In fact, Shinji could hear that very same demolition work produce typical construction noises somewhere in the distance in this very same instant.

Since Misato's apartment was pretty far up, it was usually silent whenever Misato herself wasn't there, but nothing of the sort could be said for this place – The sounds weren't particularly loud, since its source was still a fair bit away, but they were very much incessant and omnipresent.

In all the time Shinji needed to locate the correct building, the grating rhythm didn't seem let up for an instant.

Rei's home itself did not look any better than the rest of the district surrounding it, the frontage was bleak and featureless wherever it wasn't dirty, and many of the doors were just standing open; Shinji could even spot one that had completely fallen out of its frame; The immense majority of any residents this place had ever had seemed too have moved away a long time ago, and anyone who couldn't afford to leave wouldn't have the means to concern themselves with the maintenance of the building, which left the occasional piece of garbage as the only proof that anyone was still living here _at all_.

The disappearance of the residents was hardly a mystery, considering that, for its many stories, this building didn't have a single elevator. The bleak, colorless staircase only had a few small windows without even actual glass panes in them, and Shinji even noticed one or two broken driprails.

The further he got, the more he wondered what Rei was even doing in such a dreary place. There was simply no solid reason for her to be living here. She was important NERV personnel, a pilot, to be exact, and she seemed to get along with his father – If they were going to offer _him_ a proper apartment all for himself at the drop of a hat, it should go without saying that all Rei would need to do to get proper accommodation was to ask for them… so why was she of all people among the last few to be living in this desolate hole?

Didn't anyone care?

Why didn't she just… complain about this or something?

All this place did was to progressively batten Shinji's uncertainties before he had even set foot in the actual apartment.

As if he wasn't nervous enough – after all, he would be entering the personal living space of the living riddle that had occupied his thoughts ever since his arrival.

The apartment that lay beyond this threshold he had now reached belonged to his father's confidante, not to mention… to a girl.

Yes, he was just about to make his first ever visit to a girl's place, and that alone was enough to tighten his nerves to the fullest.

Alright, he had moved in with Misato before this, but that was something else entirely.

The Katsuragi-residence has since become _his_ personal space as well, but what lay behind this doors was Rei's alone.

There was always something special and intimate about a person's private rooms, in many ways, they could be reliable mirrors of someone's lifestyle and personality.

Of course, the threshold itself hardly seemed to live up to such romanticized language: Before him was a simple plastic door that had probably been white in its best days, stuck into a wall of featureless concrete bricks.

The external walkway that led him here was covered in dirt, nobody seemed to mind the many discarded cans, empty plastic bottles, crumpled papers or even the occasional rotting banana peels.

Regardless, the small, greying plastic sign above the door confirmed without a doubt that this was indeed apartment number 402, and that someone called "Ayanami" was living here – This, in defiance of all sense of normalcy, appeared to be the correct place.

Since he had stopped trusting those senses soon after arriving in Tokyo-3, he decided to do the most obvious thing and make use of the horribly cheap looking doorbell-contraption – it, however, chose to honor its cheap looks and failed to produce a sound.

After a few attempts at pressing it, Shinji concluded that it was broken.

Dejected and no less insecure, the Third Child stared at the nondescript plastic door. For the better part of the next few minutes, he just remained standing in front of it without any clue on how to proceed, then, it occurred to him that there apartments probably weren't terribly large, so that she'd probably hear it if he just knocked on the door. But when his knuckles connected with the plastic, he made another disconcerting discovery: It wasn't even locked.

He was very well aware that you weren't actually supposed to just walk into some complete stranger's lodging, but the door was open and… this whole situation was just crazy.

He had been told… he was supposed- He had been ordered to deliver this card to her and take her along for the experiments, so he practically _had_ to go in there, right?

Nothing else was going to accomplish anything.

That was how Shinji ended up opening the door, at first rather tentatively, announcing his presence multiple times to compensate for any deficits in politeness. The worst possible outcome of this was his lone comrade in this terrible fight getting a wrong impression of him – He couldn't stand the thought of that.

"H-Hello… Excuse me please, is… is anyone home?" Hesitantly, he stepped over the threshold. "E-Excuse me, it's me, Ikari!"

Shinji grew more disconcerted by the instant – While the unlocked door should have been a sufficiently obvious sign that there was, phrased with the bluntness that could be the only accurate response, something _massively weird_ going on, but after taking a single peek inside the apartment, there was no room left to deny it.

That very door that he'd just closed behind him was equipped with a mail box that was filled to the brim and beyond, spilling over with pamphlets and advertising letters and the like. Even with the excesses of the habitual paper bombardment current companies seemed so fond of taken into account, it was painfully obvious that it hadn't been emptied in a long, long time. Never mind the mailbox – there were piles of letters catching dust on nearby furniture, or even scattered across the floor!

Nonplussed, Shinji stood in the dark apartment, without anyone to tell him what to do next or to give him anything specific to react to.

"Uh, Ayanami, I'm… I'm coming in now…" he stammered into the air.

He was about to proceed further inside, when he noticed that he, probably owing to his initial discomposure, had forgotten to take off his shoes to upon entering as it was customary in this corner of the world, although Shinji quickly came to suspect that this _wasn't_ the usual custom in _this_ particular apartment – The entire floor was covered in dark skid marks.

Trying not to step on any major agglomerations of dirt, Shinji tiptoed forward, but the rest of the apartment didn't seem all too eager to soothe his deepening perturbation:

There was no flooring and no wall papers; All visible inner surfaces of the building were naked concrete. Even in the minimal twilight governing this apartment, the individual concrete blocks making up the walls could be differentiated, much like the many, many footprints, or the layer of dust on the mostly metallic appliances of the kitchenette, none of which looked like they were actually being used.

By contrast, the greying impermeable plastic curtain that separated what was probably the bathroom from the rest of the minuscule domicile looked _very_ time-worn, displaying darker stains where she probably used to grab it to pull it aside, and quite a few broken plastic hooks no longer attached to the corresponding rail on the ceiling.

Everything was submerged into a sea of deep shadows in the manner of a sunken city, with the only illumination being a stray ray of sunlight entering through a tear in the long, heavy nylon curtains that blocked the already small windows somewhere in the next room, separate from the entrance area only through a simple archway, or whatever you'd call a door-shaped hole in a wall that wasn't actually arched.

Irritated, but somehow gripped by a horrible kind of deep yet sudden fascination, Shinji continued to step further inside while avoiding the thought of words that could be used to describe his current actions in an unsavory light.

He felt like he had somehow stepped into a foreign universe that followed very different rules from the ones he had known for most of his life.

The thick curtains were directly attached to some plastic railings glued to the ceiling which was also made up of bare concrete.

The whole place was thickly packed with shadows – there was a lamp, but it was a) off, b) only equipped with two of four possible neon tubes c) didn't even have a covering.

One of the room's upper corners was covered in soot without any evidence that there had ever been an attempt to remove the ugly black stain.

The bed had a frame of black metal bars that made Shinji think of hospital beds; It did, however, feature a reading lamp. The blue sheets were in complete disarray, but they had the components of a girl's uniform corresponding to Shinji's school strewn across them, the first indication that this establishment – Shinji was wary of following his initial impulse to call it a 'hole' – was indeed Rei's domicile.

The pillow was full of blood stains which probably still stemmed from the time in which she had been wearing these thick bandages around her head, and it's covering didn't appear to have been washed or even changed ever since.

It just didn't make any sense… Why would his father allow her to live under such conditions? Why wasn't Ayanami herself doing anything against it?

And where were her parents?

There was hardly enough space for _one_ person, let alone more.

Intoxicated by a numbing concoction of worry about Rei, shock about the state of this place and rapture induced by this paranormal, alien location that was, despite everything, still the inner sanctum of the girl that hardly left Shinji's thoughts and feelings any reprieve since his arrival in Tokyo-3, he let his eyes continue their journey across the room, where they happened across a single, colorless chair that had further articles of clothing draped over it.

On the opposing side of the room, there was a small, white refrigerator only half the height of a person, humming in solitude, and, at the same time, serving as a sort of storage space for all sorts of things that seemed to have its surface as their only designated place; A plastic bag hanging from it seemed to have been repurposed as provisional trash bin and, in its function, had been filled to the brim with all sort of undefinable empty cans, the uppermost of which were identifiable as energy drinks and protein shakes, but there might be vessels for various sorts of canned food further down for as far as he knew – The fact that some of these had spilled onto the floor did not seem to have particularly bothered its owner so far.

On the fridge itself, there was a beaker full of water, right in the path of the only light in the room and its tendency to cause intriguing optical phenomena, in the vincinity of an upside-down cup of transparent plastic and several small jars of distinct kinds of medication, if Shinji was not mistaken. Right next to them were two rolls of fresh bandages – and right next to the fridge, there was an entire cardboard box with _used_ ones, all of them soiled with blood all over – Of course, Shinji was well aware that she had been walking around with a multitude of bandages on her for quite some time, and he understood that this implied changing them on a regular basis, but that didn't make this image any less shocking, the implication that all these pure white bandages whose immaculate outside he had been observing at school had been bright red on the inside all along, continuously being replaced and discarded when the crimson stains reached their surfaces…Quite bluntly, he was forced to realized that her state in all that time she had spent sitting at her desk in solitude because he couldn't bring himself to approach her had been much worse than he ever assumed… And what was the meaning behind all that medication, anyway? What exactly were they for?

It was obvious enough that just asking her would be a rude thing to do and bound to end in some type of gaffe that would ruin his chances with her altogether, but there was no way that this sight _could_ possibly leave him wholly unaffected. Perhaps, he tried telling himself, her use of those pills had only been a temporary state related to her injuries, but most of those were basically gone by now, so what if there was… some other reasons?

Ayanami certainly had a general tendency towards a sickly appearance, especially with that constant deathly pallor of hers… But another implication that didn't just pass Shinji by were that of the simple factum that he would never have learned any of this if he hadn't come here and taken a good look at this place… It wasn't exactly any of his business wether she was somehow sick or not.

He had pretty much barged into her private space without her knowledge or permission.

But while this thought alone was enough to tear his eyes from the fridge, this place still contained many other things capable of capturing his gaze; Behind her bed, there was a metal, ring-like contraption for the purpose of drying clothes which currently had several pieces of underwear hanging down from it, a sight that was a remarkably different experience than the occasional glimpses he had caught of Misato's panties and bras: These small pieces of cloth weren't meant to charm or to please – they simply took up space and existed, plain, ungarnished and taintless pure white. Other than that, there was a small dresser with a few books on it, right next to the window.

That. Was. All.

The main component of this accommodation that Shinji was still browsing in disbelief was still first and foremost empty space.

Shinji didn't quite know what to make of it.

This place had more in common with a… hospital room or laboratory than it did with a girl's room.

It lacked the 'used' smell in the air, the welcoming warmth of a home.

Then, however, Shinji managed to spot one Detail that didn't seem to fit the sterile, impersonal structure of this room, but didn't defy explanation any less than it would have done if it had fit right in:

There, on the small dresser with that slightly-open uppermost drawer, next to two thick books packed with small notes, placed right in the path of the intruding light like some sort of relic, Shinji's gaze was met with a pair of partially cracked glasses in cheap-looking plastic framing.

"Is that Ayanami's?" he wondered, thinking aloud.

As far as he could recall, he had never seen her with glasses before, not even at school. Kensuke's appeared to be permanently glued to his knobbly nose, and even the short time that Mitsurugi had been part of their class had been sufficient for Shinji to notice that he occasionally pulled out a pair of reading glasses to get a better look at his schoolbook or those magazines of his full with brainteasers and riddles, but _Rei?_

In all the time he had spent observing her from afar, he had never noticed her wearing any sort of eyeglasses.

Then, however, he recalled one more person in his immediate environment who was dependent on a visual aid.

Ikari Gendo, supreme Commander of NERV.

Didn't Ritsuko's account of that failed experiment include a pair of his glasses breaking? Could these actually be…?

Partially gripped by some kind of desire to see his world as his father saw it, and in part because of this inherent tendency of unused glasses to exude an irresistible desire to put them on, Shinji carefully placed them in his face – at the worst possible moment.

Just as the Third Child had given in to his curiosity, he heard the swift sound of a curtain being pulled aside.

Given the circumstances, the cracked lenses only allowed him to capture a rather blurred image of its source when he hastily turned around with this rising feeling of being caught red-handed – but that was more than enough.

Her flawless, alabaster skin wrapped in deep shadows.

Her posture, the image of honesty and purity, pulled right out of a silent moment of life without any sort of forced, artificial coquetting.

Her hair, unkempt and undisguised, having only just been revealed from underneath the small, brown towel that she was still half-gripping with her hands, that was still hanging over her consummate body like a tunic over the antique marmoreal likeness of a Greek goddess.

Her thin, but elegant calves that invited the eye to follow them upwards, towards the entirety of her naked, absolutely perfect, naked… naked…

(Right. Something was wrong with this picture, wasn't there?

Something about that word… Did he just say 'naked'?)

…NAKED!

SHE WAS NAKED!

Except for her small, brown towel and her simple, black slippers, which weren't exactly improving the situation, she was absolutely BUTT NAKED, clad only in an authentic ACME birthday suit.

Slightly surprised, she lowered her arms, let go of the towel and abruptly directed her gaze at the Third Child without saying a word.

At this point, Shinji was bluntly seized by raw, undignified panic.

"I-I- I didn't-"

But unfortunately, Shinji didn't manage to squeeze anything intelligible past his lips before Rei's silent scan of his person turned up a result that changed her initially mildly puzzled expression to one that was most definitely not amused.

Single-mindedly, she marched right towards Shinji, her still wet feet coming closer and closer.

Shinji immediately recoiled, mainly in fear of immanent retribution, but also driven by secondary factors such as his being very much overwhelmed by this situation, his general intrinsic tendency to respond to these with flight, and last but not lead two further, formidable shaped factors that seemed to wobble and jiggle with each of Rei's movements and were far too close for _any_ sexual inexperienced teenager's comfort, especially since the first Child didn't make the slightest attempts to cover herself.

But in the end, it didn't help any more hardly understandable "I- I really didn't mean to-", given that there wasn't an infinite amount of space to retreat to: Before long, he was backed against Rei's drawyer by her undeterred advance, and Rei herself boldly put one of her feet between Shinji's and began to extend her slim, pale arms toward his head, showing no inhibitions whatsoever in approaching him with all of her nude, statuesque body as it quaked with breath and motion and residual droplets of water.

But instead of slapping him or grabbing him by the collar, the entire attention of her rounded girlish fingertips was focused on the deformed plastic in Shinji's face.

When she attempted to remove it from his nose, she finally overstepped the limits of what Shinji was able to take in terms of proximity to her naked, female flesh ,including all the… special places of her anatomy that were now mere inches from his own. Incapable of clear thoughts, Shinji instinctively attempted a step backwards although there was no more space to recoil into – Already on the tips of his toes, the Third Child lost his balance for good and struggled to shift his weight as to not fall backwards, which only succeeded in sending him on an unintentional voyage _forward_ , which naturally unavoidably caused him to bump into Rei, who, as mentioned before, had been standing at a negligible distance from him.

Fighting to keep their already tangled bodies from falling, both instinctively came up with the idea to hang on to the other at roughly the same instant –

Much later, after they found themselves in a subtly differing but overall similar position in the heart of an ending world, he would come to see this as one of the most obvious sighs of this inherent sense of familiarity he had felt about her from the very beginning, proof that he had intrinsically trusted her to catch his fall – at this very moment, however, he would have been a lot more likely to attribute this action to "Bad Luck" or "Stupidy", based mainly on its immediate consequence: With both of them having the same "glorious" idea, but nothing resembling a firm foothold, the laws of physics left their fumbled attempts to stay afoot with only one possible conclusion:

They fell. Both of them.

As if to add insult to injury, the carrying strap of Shinji's bag ended up getting stock on the half-open drawyer behind him, and just in case the situation wasn't already embarrassing enough, it turned out that she used this particular piece of furniture to store her clothing, more precisely, her underwear.

It was filled with bras and panties, all of which cheerfully joined the two EVA pilots in their flight and descent, scattering all across the room.

Some component of the ensuing confusion even sent the curtain into motion, allowing the light to pass through at a slightly broader angle that allowed its refraction in the slightly stirred contents of the beaker on the refrigerator to become a rainbow.

A rainbow, created by the slightest vibration that would still have sufficed to send even the stillest waters into motion. The same rainbow that Shinji had lately come to associate with defeat over an angel, an ancient symbol for a newly forged bond between a god and humanity, of a contract between the almighty source of all life and its children…

Like a bridge, it stretched across the room and its silence that was only punctuated by the faraway construction sounds, above the two children who didn't dare to move the intertwined twist of flesh that this precarious situation had left their bodies in.

Shinji froze up like a freshly transformed pillar of salt –

He had landed on all fours, but that was the most he could claim;

The towel, which had so far provided at least _a little_ covering for Rei's body was now spread out on the ground, and the glasses which had caused this precarious situation in the first place, had remained safely in her hand despite the fall. Her perfect, flawless body was now resting on the ground without the slightest sign of tension, much unlike Shinji – There wasn't a single part of him that _wasn't_ tight with tension and he had all but lost any capacity to produce clear thought.

Mortified, he realized that he had his right knee right between the legs of a naked girl. Sure, his pants were still forming a barrier between them, but the thin layer of fabric wasn't sufficient to block out all sensations.

He didn't even _want_ to thick about all the possible conclusions that could be drawn from this sight, but the one conclusion that couldn't be evaded was that he was currently on top of a naked girl of whose opinion of him he couldn't even guess at, and just as an extra garnishment, just as the cherry on the cake, he had managed to get this room covered in her entire stack of underwear, including an ill-fated bra that had found his way to his behind through some sort of reverse-miracle.

Silence.

For quite a while, the passage of time was evidenced only by the construction noises coming from outside.

Paralyzed by shock, all he could do was gape at her.

Shinji looked at Rei.

Rei looked at Shinji.

But it wasn't quite the same kind of 'looking', as Shinji began to notice as his initial horror began to ferment into metastasizing uncertainties.

Ayanami Rei was… completely calm.

She was _stark naked_ amidst her _own underwear_ , beneath a boy with whom she had, at best, exchanged one or two sentences in her life, and devoid of the slightest reaction.

No shame, no fear, no 'Get away from me you pervert!', nothing at all.

And this made it even harder for Shinji to process all of this – If she had been angry, he might have defended himself and returned the complaints, if she were embarrassed, he could have tried to calm her down and aided her in covering herself, but like this, he could only continue to stare at this completely impossible girl with wide eyes.

Was this supposed to be some sort of silent treatment strategy? Would she continue her silence until he was begging for the ground to swallow him up in shame…? Why wasn't she _saying_ anything?

This… this whole was just _wrong_.

Fourteen-year-old girls were supposed to _mind_ strangers of the opposite sex getting a good look at their birthday suit!

Caught beneath the heavy, pressing silence, Shinji couldn't make himself move, very well aware that every passing second probably made him look like even more of a hopeless pervert, and every moment that Rei spent wordlessly looking at him just made it all worse.

"Could you move?" she finally asked, shattering the silence with her quiet, almost frighteningly nonchalant words.

Shinji gladly complied, although the process of separating himself from her made him aware of one spicy little detail that he had failed to notice until now, which in itself was the best proof of just what kind of panic this whole incident had thrown him into.

Normally, this would have been the _first_ thing he should have noticed, and that was only just beginning to describe the truly shocking part, namely, that his left hand had been resting on Rei's left breast for all of this long, long time, fitting snugly around it.

"AAAH!"

Shinji immediately jolted away, hastily raising his arms into the air as he jumped to his feet.

At this point, his strained nerves were very much giving out on him;

This visit could hardly have gone any worse. She was the only other EVA pilot on this godforsaken planet, and now, he had thoroughly convinced her that he was a grope-happy lecher. Just how was he going to face her at school, let alone work with her on a next-to-daily basis? How did he manage to screw this up so fast?

If she didn't begin to hate his guts the moment she stepped out of the shower, she definitely did _now_.

"I…I…I…" He attempted to stammer, knowing in his heart that it would be futile.

For one more instant, Rei remained motionless on the floor, eying him with a stare that was somewhere between minimally puzzled and blankly uncomprehending, before she started moving wordlessly, as if nothing particularly remarkable had taken place, of course sending further waves of motion through her breasts as well.

One she was standing, she didn't appear to be in any further hurry to get away from him, leaving it to Shinji to do enough frantic recoiling for the both of them, uncomfortable with that much bared, female flesh and still half expecting the punishment that never came.

Instead, Rei simply turned around, still in the nude, still without any apparent sense of modesty, still giving little indication that the graceless carom earlier had actually happened, and walked over to her bed in complete serenity.

Shinji couldn't help but stare after her in perplexion.

Half-conciously, Shinji touched the fingers of his left hand together, as if to recapture the feeling of Rei's body, and the residual warmth she had left on him.

Only now that the panic was waning did it sink in that he'd just had his first direct encounter with the nude chest of a human female.

His first impression of it: Warm, soft, smooth. A rather… characteristic consistence, reminiscent of an ideal pillow, not too hard, not to soft, perfect to cuddle with, somewhat acquiescent to his fingers while still retaining a certain firmness, 'al dente' like a good Italian noodle, snugly filling the dome of his hand.

He'd even… felt the nipple's distinct shape against the inside of his palm…

Not particularly bothered by the presence of a male stranger in her room, Rei reached for the clothes she had previously placed on her bed without any particular hurry.

Completely magnetized, Shinji observed as she calmly and nonchalantly picked up that little, elastic piece of cloth and slid both of her shapely calves inside it.

That she was behaving every bit as she would if she were unobserved only helped to make the sight more arousing.

Shinji watched, as she straightened up, her shoulder blades, her spine, the whole arch of her back like the roof of a cathedral, her legs like white, immaculate columns of marble, the light flesh of her body, like a statue, not unusually opulent, leaning more towards the petite side, but still possessing enough substance to invite touch, not excessively thin or skinny or otherwise exaggerated, but altogether unflawed, so very much… _right_ , just _right_.

Apart from her statue-like complexion, her build was more or less… normal, but not in the sense of 'average', but in being so all-around perfect that there were no further deviations from the ideal that Shinji could name, no further adjectives he could find to describe her.

Her calves might have been a little bit on the thinner side, but that wasn't as much of a concern when her torso had everything where it should be, including bits of 'padding'; Somewhere in the back of his head, that particular detail generated the feeling that she might have use for a protector, and that was… all right, he guessed.

She pulled her simple, inornate panties up to her lady bits, casually pulled at it to properly cover her buttocks, and somehow, her lone observer found himself fighting off a much stronger reaction than at the sight of Misato's lacy underwear. He couldn't fully explain it, but he guessed that when you took care to correctly present and package yourself before others, if you bought the sort of underwear that you thought others would like to see, you were, to a degree, playing a part, actively _trying_ to please others, which wasn't a bad thing in itself, but what Rei was doing there served no purpose other than itself, didn't attempt to create any image, and wasn't otherwise directed at his person, it was just beautiful in and of itself without even trying.

Only when she bent down anew to pick up her bra and requested to know the reason for his visit in a strikingly nonchalant manner without the involvement of any great emotions did Shinji become fully aware of what he was doing.

He had been _staring_ … quite unabashedly… peeped as she had gotten dressed… and thought dirty thoughts, to boot! And she had just demanded an explanation for this mess. What was he going to say, just what in the world was he going to say… He should have known that she'd confront him sooner or later, she _was_ a girl after all, it would be highly foolish to assume even for a moment that she might _not_ hate his guts after this.

"I, uhm, I…" Shinji stammered desperately, wrestling his own panic. He lowered his gaze. His mouth opened, air exited his lungs, but the goddamn words refused to let go of his tongue.

In the meantime, Rei, whose absurdly shapely backside now stretched her plain white underpants where it wasn't partially exposed, as around that area where the garment in question only covered that small strip between her legs, had succeeded in correctly positioning her mostly functionally-designed bra and was currently busy slipping her dainty, faultless arms through the straps, a timeless ideal captured in material shape, much like Botticelli's Venus.

But while her body might be saying 'renaissance', the short, uncomplicated haircut forming a loose bob around her head was closer to saying 'Nineties Sci-Fi haircut'.

The longest reaches of her hair parted around her back of her neck, and every time she moved, they subtly changed their position- Oh no, was he staring again?

Ashamed, Shinji averted his gaze, forcing himself not to look back. Unbelievable. So this was supposed to be his very first, proper birds-and-bees experience with a girl his age – and not just _any_ girl his age! – and he had already thoroughly blown it before he realized what was happening.

What if she told _his father_ about this?

He scrambled for a way to save this situation, if such a thing was indeed still within the realm of possibility.

"I… I'm here because… because I was asked to!" he finally produced, after numerous fruitless attempts. "I, er… what was it again… eh… Your card! Your new security card! Your… card's been renewed and I was, eh, asked to bring it to you!"

By now, Rei was busy buttoning up her uniform blouse.

"Ritsuko-san forgot to give it to you, so I, uhm, I… I… I wanted-" Shinji's words grew progressively quieter and further apart, until he paused entirely, perhaps for an attempt to audibly swallow his mounting sense of complete failure.

Rei herself didn't seem to be paying the slightest attention to his attempted excuses, and just kept putting on her dress without the slightest reaction or comment, landing a critical hit with her full-scale cold shoulder assault.

And right now, Shinji couldn't picture any logical reason for this other than her being every bit as pissed as one would assume her to be.

This entire visit had been a complete and utter failure without the slightest consolatory detail.

So, there he got a pretext to actually talk to the girl he had been whacking his brains about since his arrival, and what did he do? He'd ended up groping and ogling her!

Even now, he struggled to keep his restless gaze in check, mainly because his current, nervous state wouldn't allow it to rest anywhere for too long.

"I'm so, so sorry… I really didn't want to-"

But she wasn't even listening to his fumbled apologies. Her attention remained where it had been all along – on the broken glasses she had carefully placed in the corresponding box, before closing it with a clicking sound.

Unnoticed by Shinji, the faintest of all smiles flowed over the mysterious girl's lips as she regarded the box with a look of certitude, replaying pleasant memories.

What he didn't know was that being unclothed in front of other people, or sterile, lab-like dwellings might as well have been the most normal things in the world to her – The entire turbulent mishap could have been avoided if he had avoided one single mistake: Touching her most cherished possession, those glasses she treasured like a relic ever since the incident.

Having succeeded in protecting it from harm filled her with a warm feeling and made her think of the occasion on which she had acquired her prized memento.

"I-I really didn't know!" Shinji kept stammering, still lost somewhere between dread and helplessness. "I did ring the doorbell, but no one opened up, and the door was unlocked, so…- I _really_ didn't mean to…"

He was still talking when the squeaking of the front door interrupted him, leaving him all alone in the small apartment.

He couldn't believe it.

She really just walked right past him and left…

* * *

Since she hadn't even heard him out, Shinji had enough reason to suppose that she had to be significantly angrier than she looked and probably didn't feel like looking at his face right now.

With this axiom in mind, it should be hardly surprising that Shinji spent the whole trip to headquarters without daring to hand her that stupid card.

Once again, he was stuck with observing her from afar.

Unfortunately, he could not avoid being headed into the same direction as her, resulting in him following a couple of meters after the quiet girl as she single-mindedly followed her path through the inner city, lacking the heart to approach her any further.

He didn't want to provoke a gesture of open rejection from _her_ of all people, so he kept his distance, not faring any better during their mutual tram ride to headquarters, which didn't really have anything 'mutual' about it – They were sitting at the opposite of the same Wagon, with a large door in between the benches they were sitting on, and while Shinji might have stolen the occasional downcast glance at her, she didn't deem him worth a single look throughout their journey.

They reached their destination without having exchanged as much as a single word, and before long, they were standing in front of the very gates this accursed security card was supposed to open.

Shinji swallowed hard – it was now, or never.

Rei was already standing before the card reader, slightly raising her head in surprise when it didn't accept her old one.

Her next try wasn't much more effective, but at least it distracted her enough for Shinji to personally swipe her new keycard through the slot and hand it to her with a smile. "This is your new security card. Ritsuko-san asked me to bring it to you."

This was enough to actually make her turn around, appear mildly perplexed for an instant, and then properly face her fellow pilot – only to snatch the card right out of his hand and leaving once again without paying a shred of attention to him, just when he thought he'd finally pulled off the whole prince charming routine with some degree of success.

He really just fucked up any chance he might ever have had with her, didn't he?

In any case, the urge to hide away somewhere and return with a paper bag over his head – or not at all – was hard to resist. A demanding silence hung between the two of them as they both went down the impossibly long escalator that led them down into the depths of nerv HQ as the stairs of its twin right moved upward right next to them.

As long as he kept quiet, he couldn't say anything wrong.

Still, despite his better judgment, Shinji forced himself to attempt one further apology – He'd already incurred the wrath of the girl he hadn't been able to get out of his head for the last few weeks, and if that wasn't enough, she might just go and tell his father. How much worse could it possibly get?

After swallowing down everything that could have trapped his words in his throat, he once again turned to the silent girl who remained motionless with her back to him, several steps further down.

"Listen, I'm really sorry about what happened…"

"What do you mean?" she asked, still not looking at him.

She wasn't even being sarcastic here, she really, honestly didn't seem to know what he might be apologizing for. Or was she just pretending not to be upset? He couldn't get a clear look at her face, after all. Was it really possible for an adolescent girl to care so little about being seen naked (let alone being groped) by a boy her age, to the point of considering it a complete non-event?

The thought of the mere possibility just seemed overwhelmingly _wrong,_ if not downright eerie.

That way, just anyone could just walk in there and-

He didn't even want to _continue_ this thought, let alone imagine how Touji, Kensuke or his father would comment any of this.

But at least, Rei had replied, with this small, high voice of hers that always sounded like she was on the verge of fainting or something like that.

Now that the chance of a proper conversation had presented itself, he couldn't afford to let it slip by, lest he waste his last chance to somehow correct that rotten first impression.

But for that, he'd need something else to converse about for the rest of the long escalator ride… which was easier said than done when he hardly knew anything about her and whether they had anything in common… but wait. There was one he certainly knew about her, something they surely shared…

The one thing he'd longed to speak about for a long, long time now, with the perhaps only person on this world who could see it from his perspective and understand it on the most immediate level.

"Er, I… I've heard that they want you to do the reactivation experiment today…"

Riding a wave of premature hope Shinji lowered himself onto the escalator's next step, decreasing the physical distance between them by a discrete, measurable amount to match his expectations of making their emotional distance shrink a proportional amount. "I… I'm obviously hoping that everything will be fine this time, but…" he vocalized with surprising ease before reaching the hot topic: "…Aren't you afraid at all? To pilot Unit Zero again, I mean."

"Why should I be?" she asked, at most very mildly surprised, but ostensibly not moved by any sort of major emotion.

Shinji wished her answers were longer so he'd have more to craft replies with. But at least she _had_ answered. For the second time in a row, too… so maybe she _really wasn't_ angry at him! At least, he had yet to spot any sighs of disdain or discontention, and this time, he found that thought relieving.

"It's just that… I've heard that you were badly injured in the last experiment so I was wondering… whether you're all right with doing it again…"

"Yes. I am."

"But… what if your EVA goes berserk again? …Or what if we're killed by an angel!" Shinji asked, voicing his own fears more than anything else. He couldn't fathom how she could simply _accept_ all this, and even less what the purpose behind her next question was supposed to be:

"You are Commander Ikari's son, aren't you?"

"Yes… I am…" Shinji answered hesitantly.

"Then why don't you have any faith... in your father's work?"

Faith? _Faith?!_

Over the course of an instant, his fingers turned to fists, and his featured hardened as if at the touch of a button. What kind of _faith_ was he supposed to have in the ominous schemes of a man who hadn't deemed it necessary to show his face to his own son for the better part of the last eleven years?

A man who, after all that, still had the nerve to demand of him to climb into this huge, violet _thing_ that could go crazy at any moment, for the explicit purpose of fighting to the death in some bizarre gladiator games?

 _Faith?!_ Bah!

Shinji might as well have burst out in laughter, if all of this weren't rousing such anger and desperation that he wound up speaking without thinking first:

"… _of course_ not! He's hardly any father at all! He doesn't deserve any faith!"

Poor Shinji.

When Rei turned around wordlessly of all sudden, he was still hoping that she might have decided to actually face him while they conversed, but at very least when she went up a step, positioned herself directly in front of him and looked him straight into the eye, it was apparent to him that something had gone very wrong.

And he was right. Ayanami Rei may have been a relatively modest, frugal person, but there was one single thing she would insist on, one golden rule that had to be observed in her presence, and Shinji had just broken it:

Do. Not. Insult. Ikari. Gendo.

**SLAP**

Rei turned away from Shinji without further comments, coldly pointing the back of her head at his general direction.

Meanwhile, Shinji himself was still holding his reddened cheek with an expression of bewilderment right next to it.

He would never have thought that such a delicate, sickly-looking girl who had been wrapped in bandages from head to toe until recently would be capable of causing such supreme pain – She was either a lot stronger than she looked, or it had been _very_ important to her to get her point across, probably something about him being an asshole.

Either way, if she didn't hate him after the debacle in her apartment, she definitely did _now._

At first, the Third Child couldn't explain her reaction – then he recalled seeing them together in the cages… As far as he could tell, they seemed to be rather close… _of course_ she was pissed.

He should have seen this one coming from ten kilometers away, and he'd still successfully managed to put his foot in his mouth in the most disastrous way….

Shinji didn't doubt that he totally deserved that slap.

Still, he was sufficiently confused by the sheer intensity of her reaction, if not anything else – This girl who hadn't as much as _flinched_ when her private space had been violated in the crudest possible way had went and pretty much demolished half his face for speaking ill of her superior. (…and not without reason!)

Shinji just had a hard time grasping what her thoughts and reasons could possibly be – His father was probably the coldest, most hardhearted person he had ever personally interacted with in an immediate, face-to-face fashion, to the point that Shinji sometimes doubted whether he even _had_ feelings. So why would anyone defend him in such a pointed, deliberate manner? Shinji couldn't fathom why Rei, or indeed anyone would have such profound respect for him…

Except that the man who had smiled at her in the cage and personally saved her from her overheated entry plug two months ago bore very little resemblance to the icy, disinterested person Shinji knew as his father.

The Ikari Gendo _he_ knew shouldn't even be _capable_ of anything like this.

But what did Shinji know about that man at all?

He might as well have a very different side to him that Shinji just hadn't witnessed yet…

If Rei was so attached to him then… maybe he wasn't a bad person per se, and Shinji just… didn't understand him, or hadn't proven himself worthy yet…

But the boy suffocated the seeds of hope as soon as they had begun germinating.

Even _if_ his father had something like a 'nicer side', he had still chosen Rei, and not him as the person to place his faith in.

Once again, he wondered just _what_ the exact relationship between the Commander of NERV and his most enigmatic devotee really was.

Silent and thoroughly discouraged, but lacking an aim of his own, he idly followed her from a respectful distance until she disappeared behind the door of the girl's locker room to prepare for her experiment.

Staring at the closed door, he was painfully aware that it was far from being the only gateway that would readily open for her, but never for him. By far not! He might as well be standing before the tightly closed door to his father's heart – no doubt that it would also be this kind of mechanized thing, and that whatever receiving space had ever existed behind it to begin with was already taken up by Rei. By _Rei_ , who, not too long ago, had been willing to face almost certain death in this man's name, on the day he had first boarded unit one in her place, without a moment's hesitation or the faintest sign of fear.

It was fairly obvious why just about anyone would prefer her to a useless coward like himself.

He was merely an inferior, unsatisfactory replacement – and now that the proper article was nearing a full recovery, it was only a matter of time until he would have outlived the only usefulness he ever had, and he'd go back into the darkness of his unnecessary existence, superfluous to everyone, like some outdated piece of technology, waiting only to be discarded – by Misato, by Dr. Akagi, and most certainly by his father.

For all he might have managed to scrape together for himself since his arrival, there was just no place reserved for him in this world, just an aimless drift from one temporary arrangement to the next, none of which he could permanently take hold of and make it his own. It was just another repeat of what had happened with his teacher, and he should probably start thinking of Misato as just another temporary caretaker to mitigate the inevitable.

It didn't feel right to dismiss the fleeting, novel flickers of new, unprecedented experiences that had come his way here in Tokyo-3, but he would be doing his old teacher an injustice if he claimed that life at his place had been all bad – it had just never been quite _his_.

Nothing ever was, starting with his own father.

His precious heir and subordinate, the one he showed his smile to was _Rei_.

And that left very little room for Shinji.

* * *

In any case, he didn't play too large a role in Rei's thoughts as she was preoccupied with donning her plugsuit. She briefly pressed the button on her wrist, and immediately, the rubber-like fabric began to tightly envelop her pristine body.

Even now, the reverberation of past words raised a persistent, elated smile from her lips. The incredulous voices of the technicians, who couldn't believe that their Commander would risk permanent burn scars for the sake of the First Child, the audible concern in his voice, even though none of that could have possibly affected the plan, even though he had more than enough 'spare parts' in the basement…

Since Rei had known about the rather slim list detailing the reasons and purposes of her existence from the very beginning, she never saw a reason to expect anything beyond that; For that reason, it had been all the harder to miss that the commander had always treated her… different. Distinct from what the rest of the staff did. He stayed longer, he looked at her more, he always spoke to her more than it was strictly necessary to convey orders or take care of her 'maintenance', and at times, he would even request her presence for no discernible reason other than wanting her in his proximity.

He had been the only one to give her any sort of emotional input and form anything resembling a bond with her – and this bond had shaped her. Not just because he had created her and given her a purpose. She, too, had become a stoic, tight-lipped person, but also devoted and unwavering, unchained by hesitation, most faithful mirror of his image.

Or, to make a long story short: He practically raised her.

One could arguably say that he was the closest thing she ever had to a parent.

 _Of course_ she had faith in him.

* * *

"Rei? Can you hear me?"

"Yes, Sir." She affirmed tonelessly.

After nearly two months, Rei was back in the entry plug of Evangelion Unit Zero.

Ikari took a moment to push his glasses up, as if he wanted his stare to be at its most piecing when he directed it at the cyclopean war machine.

"Begin experiment."

The control room swiftly filled with the typing noises and announcements of various technicians; It was hard to overlook that all of them looked notably stressed – No one wanted a repeat of the incident that had halted all such experiments for the last months.

Even Ikari and Rei had a certain tension about them – which already implied that Misato and Shinji, who were watching the spectacle from a small window in the wall of the test chamber, were far from unaffected: The leader of the operations division kept herself ready for action with a cup of coffee, and the Third Child was leaning forward past the handrail, refusing to take his glance off EVA 00 for as much as a second.

So far, everything seemed to be going well.

As for Rei herself, she had been directing her gaze strictly ahead, paying little mind to the spectacle of flashing lights that came with the activation of the interface, but while the muscles in her face hardly moved at all, it was the expression in her eyes that betrayed her.

Being in this seat should not merit any extraordinary reactions from her, after all, this was what she was created to do – but for some reasons, she couldn't entirely stop her thoughts from going back to the memories of the last experiment.

It wasn't because of the pain, the injuries or anything about the evangelion; All of that was part of her role. This sensation of daunting heaviness did not stem from the results of the accident, but its cause. There had been this stirring, somewhere in this dark, intangible expanse in the depths of her being, some sort of distorted memory… The last thing she recalled was the sight of Dr. Akagi, Subcommander Fuyutsuki and Commander Ikari in the window to the control room. She must have been shot out of the EVA right after that, leaving her with nothing but wild, confusing visions without coherent pictures behind them and a thick coating of afterglow that made her feel… hollow somehow, like she could just disappear into this nightmare altogether at any given moment, never to wake again, if _she_ hasn't been the dream to begin with, an ephemeral ghost light being sustained by the dreaming of something much, much larger that might just forget her in the blink of an eye, just like everyone else would forget her when they saw her exposed fakeness and grew bewitched by this _real_ and _true_ self existing behind her, taking everything for itself, her life, her flesh, her validity as a consciousness with a story and very own reflections, each and every minute remainder of her existence, absorbed, devoured, swallowed whole by the alien darkness.

She glanced at the Commander's glasses right next to her seat. There it was, a simple, yet undeniable proof that Rei's life so far had been real, that _she_ was real, and that no other possibility was remotely likely enough to justify detracting her thoughts and attentions from this plane and her tasks here. She had her purpose and her connections, and she knew those were real. She had her place in the gears and frameworks of the plan.

She was _of_ all of this, of the things she had done and the people she had been involved with, shaped and defined by them, most of all by the Commander.

He was her creator, her lynchpin, her anchor in this imitation of a life, so where else could she be, where else could she possibly belong?

There should be no reason for her to experience any stress.

Indeed, the activation was proceeding smoothly so far, but they were currently nearing the critical part… The point at which things went horribly wrong last time.

Still visibly depressed, the Third Child immersed himself in the announcements of the technicians, that is, what little of them he could actually make sense of.

After over a month in this city, and a day that may have contained his best chance to get to know her properly, he was still where he had started: Watching her from the distance.

He felt quite close to being crushed by the weight of the endless doubts and questions.

Even Misato was dead serious as she observed the experiment in silent suspicion, and judging by Fuyutsuki's expression, one might think that he was pretty much expecting another fiasco – Merely Dr. Akagi maintained her composed, professional exterior, and that only as long as she wasn't glancing at the visibly worried expression on the Commander's typically icy, hard features, which he either didn't notice or failed to acknowledge, as he kept staring straight ahead through the glass pane that formed the boundary of the control room.

The countdown continued, the lights on the screens lit up one by one – and nothing happened.

It worked.

Regardless, no change was visible on Rei's visage, even as she announced that she would now proceed with further tests – but she never got to proceed.

One of the countless telephones built into the various consoles of the control room started ringing, and Fuyutsuki was the one to pick it up – and as soon as he put the receiver back in its slot, he immediately turned to his superior: "Ikari. An unidentified object is approaching. I fear the Sixth Angel has arrived."

"Abort the experiment immediately!" the Commander ordered, slipping back into his usual poker face in an instant. "All hands to battle stations! Declare red alert immediately."

"Understood." Fuyutsuki confirmed. "Are you going to use Unit Zero?"

"No. It's not ready for battle yet, and neither is Rei. What about Unit One?" he asked, directing the question in Dr. Akagi's general direction without fully turning around.

"We'll have it prepared in 380 seconds."

"Very well. Take care of it."

"Yes, Sir."

Once Ikari had taken care of that, he directed his undivided attention back to Rei, whom he addressed with a much more neutral, if not almost reassuring tone very different from the forcefully barked out orders reserved for the rest of the rest of the room: "Rei. The experiment was a success. You can come out now."

"Good." she answered quietly while the interface dissolved around her.

Only when the interior of the plug had gone dark again did she finally lean back and exhale a few bubbles of residual air in relief.

Everything had turned out all right.

She would be able to continue fulfilling her purpose.

* * *

While Rei was out of the crucible for today, Shinji's ordeal was just about to begin. The Third Child has felt his blood run cold the very instant he heard the world "Angel".

For most of the last week and the peaceful times that had come with it, he had tried his best to forget that a new enemy could appear at their doorstep at any given moment, and bring with it fresh, juicy pain and a new batch of horrible memories…and now, the time had come. It was all up to him again. Everything, _everything_ would be resting in his hands, on his shoulders, balanced on the top of his head, and he knew very well that there was no way he could keep up this cosmic tightrope act indefinitely… until now, he had stumbled through the battles in a blind panic, surviving through a lot of dumb luck, but he still didn't have any idea _how_ to actively precipitate victory in any sort of ordered fashion.

His dread grew with every restraint that was released from the Evangelion's body.

There he was, back in his plug suit, enveloped by LCL, with his interface headset attached to his scalp, so very ready to meet his doom at last.

Why?

Why was he even doing this? This would probably be his last sortie regardless of whether he lived through the battle or not. What difference did that even make? His father probably wouldn't need him for much longer, and if he wasn't needed as an EVA-pilot… he wouldn't be important to anyone at all… Not to Misato, not to Touji, not to Kensuke…

Misato didn't even bother to prepare him with a few soothing words; She was already assuming that he would just go along with this, after all, doing this was his… payment for being allowed to stay here…

And he had chosen to do that, hadn't he?

But that was with the last horrible torment safely in the fading past, not seconds from his present. Much like when he'd first agreed to fight in unit one, all this was a lot easier said than done.

Why had he stayed, in the first place? Because he wanted to stay with Misato? Because he'd hoped for something from his father? To protect Rei from what awaited her if she took his place?

He could still see her right now, on a walkway on the walls of the cage, still in her plug suit, looking in his direction, like she could fixate his eyes all the way through the armor plates of his Evangelion.

He certainly couldn't explain _why_ she would be here – After the unfortunate events of the day, there was little doubt that she probably loathed him by now.

Just another bullet point in the long, long list of things he had managed to screw up in his relatively short life so far.

While EVA 01 shot towards the surface through Tokyo-3's network of launch shafts, Shinji wondered if there was a single thing in his life that he _hadn't_ screwed up…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) Rei's very much present sequence of expressions throughout the… unfortunate encounter and the rest of the progression is, for the most part noted as such in the episode 5 script. Despite her naysayers, Rei, or at least the second version, was never "emotionless" to begin with – If such simplifying labels can be applied at all, she was a bona fine Kuudere from the start. I'm aware that this chapter has been rather lacking in terms of new scenes, but with a debut as significant as Rei's, I felt the need to properly establish and elaborate on the initial state before any development can happen. The ep 5 script, BTW, also explicitly states multiple times that Shinji had a hard time tearing his eyes from the… goodies, in case you were, uh, wondering.
> 
> (2) I hope Shinji's inner monologues weren't too tiring/frustrating to read, although they were kind of supposed to be. He has his frustrating moments. But he also has this very specific, "closed" way of perceiving the world (esp. in the prologue arc), and it was important for me to get that across/ portray this properly, including the circular aspects of it, especially since the Futagoyama-Incident and the major shift that comes with it is around the corner.
> 
> (3) I'm inconsolable. All this after I had promised less waiting… I have to thank all of you who still remembered WTF this was by the time the last chapter came out. Either way, if none of this had deterred you, you may look forward to the next chapter, the conclusion of the battle, and the conclusions that both Shinji and Misato draw based on the earlier… uh, conclusion. Chapter 13: [Operation Yashima]


	14. 13: [Operation Yashima]

_Boku no sekai kieru made_

_aenu nara_

_kimi no soba de nemurasete  
_

_(:)  
_

_If I see you once more_

_Before my world ends_

_Let me rest at your side_ **  
**

**_-Utada Hikaru, 'Beautiful world'_ **

* * *

The escaped subject released the fingers on her outstretched arm from the firm first they had been pressed into, looking past them to assess the results of her very own little 'experiment' with a thin, pleased grin.

At her feet were a few intermingling puddles of orange liquid.

The output was notably less viscous this time, completely homogenous to the naked eye and free of any residual meat or bone that could have linked the substance to the remains of the small family that had once owned this lavishly furnished apartment.

This time, the liquefaction had been complete.

The entity looked back at her now splayed fingers, her arm still extended to its full horizontal length.

The experience of power was still pulsing through her being.

She wondered what else she might be capable of.

Instead of the oversized men's clothing she was last seen with, she had now donned a green skirt of fairly adequate fit, accompanied by a camisole of similar coloration. She had, however, stayed faithful to caps, although she was no longer wearing the same one, or bothering to stuff all of her hair inside of it.

One might conclude that her degree of awareness, or at very least her information procession capabilities were steadily developing, much like her abilities.

Now, they were finally mature enough to implement her plan.

Very soon, she would be able to open the gate.

Still.

Somehow, the being felt this persistent notion that something was still missing, something beyond the 'ingredients' she would have to gather and process for the opening of the gate to occur.

But her thoughts were interrupted when she felt new calls infringing on the edges of her consciousness.

She turned to one of the windows of the expensivelyfurnished, yet small apartment, narrowing her eyes in question.

"Another one of yours, Adam?"

* * *

In numerous little rivulets, the red water ran down the blue, smooth surface, back to the depths it had come from. No single drop remained stuck to the surface – the sharp-edged shapes of the sixth angel was void of any irregularities for them to cling to.

Ramiel, the Angel of thunder, shot into the sky like a cannonball and then gracefully floated back down, leaving the sea behind to head towards the fortress of the Lillim like his predecessors had done.

The ocean, that lifeless, red goop that had resulted from an incomplete attempt to create a world suitable for beings like himself, had been his refuge for long enough.

Now, it was Ramiel's own turn to finally lead that process to completion and claim the Promised Land for his kind.

Seemingly weightless, the messenger descended, reflecting the sea and the clouds on its surfaces and casting a peculiar shadow on the landcape, one that was only dark and defined on the edges, but yielded to dancing light toward the middle, remainders of sunlight that had fallen into the semitransparent structures of crystalline creature, and revealed the continuous processes taking place inside, where only strange, impossible shapes and bizarre processes of refraction, diffraction and diffusion could be glimpsed, which probably gave the being its color in the same way the ocean and sky had acquired theirs.

While his predecessors had still been vaguely humanoid or at least instantly recognizable as organic structures, Ramiel manifested itself in the pure, abstract shape of a floating octahedron.

But his outward form wasn't the only thing that's different.

If Ramiel had been human and interacted with other humans as such, he might have been described as level-headed, cold, ambitious and analytical in his thoughts; Unlike his siblings, he saw no reasons to just storm the Lillims' fortress and allow himself to hand all control to his instincts afterwards – Instead, he already had a clear plan, a concrete pattern of behavior, a definite algorithm he would follow to gain direct access to his target decreeing how he would react to any given obstacle.

Even his presence was distinct; Not heavy, booming and metallic, but sharp and vitreous, distantly recognizable as poised, even elegant, as he weightlessly floated over the landscape reflected in his surface, not all too long after he first appeared as a glittering dot beyond the shore.

Part of his calls even traversed the spectrum of mechanic vibrations that humans could have sensed acoustically, although that small audible strip would have been a rather poor distortion of the whole and its message, but even if it had been decipherable, communication would still have remained impossible, it was just not in their nature – The messenger's voice wasn't made to transport any kind of information from point A to point B, but radiated from him into all directions, like the light of a star.

The messenger's steady calls, a sound resembling a chimera of whale song, tuning forks, wine glasses and the acoustic equivalent of an electron's diffraction pattern, accompanied him on his journey over the land he aimed to reclaim.

* * *

Shinji felt the acceleration forces as EVA 01 was being propelled towards the surface through the launch shaft, not exactly abiding by the textbook definition of a smooth ride.

He tried his best to brush back his churning emotions and mentally prepare for the battle.

With every meter, he could feel the deadly danger he would be exposing himself to closing in on him, enough to make him fear that it might physically clasp him in its cold arms with the suddenness of a gust of wind and drain him of everything that kept him from losing it right here, right now in an icy vampiric kiss the very moment the enemy would become an undeniable part of his reality.

As much as he might try to keep this specific conclusion out of his thoughts, it was anything but easy.

Dead serious, the pilot EVA 01 felt himself speeding towards his fate – and said fate didn't make him wait.

He had yet to reach the surface when Ramiel's body began to detach from itself along the central edges and gather luminescence within the gap, indicating that he must have recognized and assessed the threat by means other than classic sight.

The technicians in central dogma did notice a sudden energy surge within the enemy, but it was too late.

Misato's order to flee reached Shinji the exact same moment in which his Evangelion reached the surface, and so did the angel's particle beam, split seconds later.

The messenger's crystalline body split into two symmetric tetrahedrons, only for the inner surfaces to part into countless small cubes, amongst which the core gleamed, a crimson sphere amidst azure cubes, almost as if he wanted to peer at his opponent from a safe position, figuratively "look them in the eye" before sending them destruction.

Next, however, the angel proceeded to make quick work of his opponent, right according to plan: His form twisted into numerous intersecting prisms of various sizes, and the halation that had previously formed around the core blasted forth effulging intensity, burned its way through several skyscrapers, leaving the atoms in their liquefied remainders fluorescing in their exited states after a sizeable radius around the relatively compact beam had been fully obliterated, and from there, continued right into the chest plate of EVA 01.

The violent giant's AT-field broke so fast that its existence might have gone completely unnoticed from as much as an ill-timed blink – and before the hypothetical observer would have fully opened their eyes, the spot in question would have been glowing like the sun from that brief fraction of the angel's unyielding assault.

Sparks were flying, bright drops of light, charge and occasionally molten metal, in tandem with the flickering of the interface before the eyes of the pilot, who was hopelessly overwhelmed by the foreign pain, frantically trying to grasp the light beam drilling into his seemingly burning chest in an instinctive attempt to keep it from pressing the LCL out of his lungs and his blood out of his lungs.

Patently, there was nothing for Shinji's hands to get hold of; The incandescent beam that kept pumping pure, unfiltered pain into his body was far outside the entry plug.

The indescribable agony prevented any thinking, planning, or even the formation of coherent thought. All he could do was scream.

He could no longer process all these little voices in the control center, deliberating about lowering his synch ratio or deploying an armor plate, although the latter suggestion was barely register when it was actually carried out and resulted in the massive shield successfully blocking the particle beam, leaving Shinji behind in sudden darkness, wildly twitching and barely breathing, with the afterglow of the searing pain that still burned in every fiber of his body as his only company.

He had yet to stop creaming when the angel shifted to a new, cross-like foundation and generated a beam of analogous shape, which proved much more potent than the last, obliterating the shield like ice cream in the sunshine, flinging the molten remainders of the plate against the completely defenseless Evangelion, along with the high-energy particles constituting the beam.

At this point, Captain Katsuragi saw no choice but to abort the operation.

But even the way back seemed lost to them: The launching pad that had only just transported the violet colossus to the surface was reduced to a puddle of molten metal.

The video feed on the main screen which displayed EVA 01's partially glowing, partially molten armor from multiple angels made their situation fairly apparent, and the graphs and figures on the technician's various consoles weren't sugarcoating it either.

But no graph, no string of numbers could have possibly described the infernal torment Shinji was experiencing at that very moment; Vaporized matter ascended from the patch of blinding, horrific mess the beam ended in, telling tales of what was obscured from view by a radiance so bright it made a magnesium flame look like a match compared to the sun.

A huge, red danger notice sat in the middle of the interface that had long since stopped to show anything other than brightness that burns the eye, but one might wonder why. What need was there for error messages in a war machine that made its user feel like his very own skin was in the process of being barbecued? Somehow, Shinji could still smell the Evangelion's charred flesh through the ionized, luminescent air, and what little subconscious part of him was still attempting to process this ordeal couldn't differentiate between the EVA's body and his own.

The boy was screaming ceaselessly, expulsing an unbroken stream of ill-formed, primal sounds from his gaping mouth hole; There was no recognition in his wide open eyes.

The LCL surrounding him, including what he carried in his lungs, was beginning to boil and bubble all around him; The entry plug had turned into a furnace, transmitting its terrific heat to his body's exposed soft tissues, straight through the inner mucous membranes where the suit didn't provide the slightest bit of relief, as if to aid its transmogrification into some other material, and low and behold, the heavenly crucible soon revealed its most appraised product: The burning wish, no, plea, no, prayer that the angel's beam might finally reach the EVA's control unit and blow him all the way to the hereafter, if only that would stop this excruciating torture.

He couldn't escape, he couldn't break free, and it JUST. WOULD. NOT. STOP.

" **GET ME OUT!** " his raw, desperate screeches reverbed through the command center, sprinkling the technicians' faces with worry and shock. " **I CANT TAKE IT ANY MORE, JUST GET ME OUT OF HERE! GET ME OUT OF HERE, DADDY, JUST GET ME OUT!** "

Ikari kept his dead serious glance transfixed on the screens, but didn't as much as flinch otherwise – Not even Shinji's singular use of the 'D'-Word was enough to yield a physical response from him – In sharp contrast to Misato, for whom the never-ending screams were so torturous that she might as well have been the target of the particle beam herself.

She was no longer able to reliably conceal her emotions behind a façade of reliability.

"RECOVERING THE PILOT HAS MAXIMUM PRIORITY! EJECT THE ENTRY PLUG _RIGHT NOW_!" she shouted, frayed. _She_ had made him climb back into that thing. _She_ had done this to him.

"Cancel that order." Ikari's deep, serious, yet almost unnaturally calm voice resounded from his place behind this lower platform.

Misato whirled around in an instant, half appalled, half fueled by incomprehension, but Dr. Akagi was already standing in her line of sight, prepared to spew justifications: "If the EVA loses its pilot, the AT-field will collapse immediately. We can't afford to lose Unit One right now."

Misato still supplied a small "But…!" , yet ended up averting her eyes from her co-worker when she was forced to realize that she was right.

Without its AT-field, EVA 01 would probably be blown away like autumn foliage in a gust of wind, and the rest of humanity – including Shinji, if he could even be safely ejected without the entry plug melting in the comet tail of the EVA's destruction – would follow it swiftly.

Regardless, Misato couldn't deny her repulsion at the thought that Dr. Akagi, Commander Ikari, and ultimately even she were entertaining such clinical calculations to the adorable "background music" of a fourteen-year-old boy screaming his lungs out.

This grotesque performance… had to end _right now_.

"That's enough!" She called, decisive. "Emergency recovery of the entire sector! Detonate all of the explosive bolts!"

At the touch of a button, several rows of carefully placed explosive capsules ignited beneath the city. Trees shook, trucks tumbled into the emergent abyss.

An entire city block sunk away to unseen dephts beneath Ramiel's burning beam.

Realizing that he had been victorious – at least for the time being – he ceased the bombardment and triumphantly folded back into his preferred octahedral form accompanied by a resounding metallic clang.

* * *

In short, Shinji's initial reaction amounted to a general mental state of ' _Not again!_ '.

He was back at this place that really wasn't anywhere, that state characterized by a sense of a warm flow – But this time, Shinji didn't open himself to the unreal dreamscape that once again manifested as a surreal version of the train car from ten years ago, kept only in the colors of the evening sun. Since the last time he was here, missing bits and gaps in his memory appeared to have been closed or filled out, supplemented with bits and peaces of last week's tram.

The place seemed more three-dimensional and accessible, more like something a person could actually stand in, but that didn't interest him in the slightest.

Last time he'd seen this, he had been inside the Evangelion, and that was exactly where he _didn't_ want to be right now.

"I don't want to do this anymore." He told the light-drenched emptiness of the wagon, huffishly refusing to partake in the flow of warmth surrounding him.

It tasted of the heat that singed him.

He couldn't take any more of this.

He just couldn't take it!

Yes, he had decided to stay here and keep doing this after the events of last week, but that was because he thought that the worst was already behind them, that things would get better somehow after he survived and recovered from the last ordeal.

But this time, he didn't have a chance _at all_!

Even in hindsight, he couldn't think of a single thing he might have done… In the end, he had to go through all that suffering all over again, if not significantly _worse_ than even the last time. All of this disgustingly undignified suffering, the pain, the purest distillate of mortal fear…

What for? Just why did he do this to himself?

Because of the _one time_ Misato told him he did something right?

That had relativized itself quite quickly, much like the initial enthusiasm of his classmates.

There were a few incidents where someone said something, usually at the very beginning, but overall…

Overall…

"Hardly anyone really praises me, because they already take it for granted that I'll fight and win anyway. And if I lose, if I do the slightest bit wrong, everyone will hate me…"

That was no childlike oversimplification he'd just convinced himself of, that was a real possibility – He'd spent his life so far as a citizen of a world that had only just pulled itself back from the brink of annihilation, and like survivor of the impact wars, he couldn't be oblivious of what people could be driven to in desperate situations. He had been too young to experience any of this personally enough to really _know_ it (For those born after the catastrophe, it was more something that just happened to be present in the collective consciousness of society, where new individuals being sozialized into it could retrieve it from) but that allowed it to persist as the kind of vague, ominous phantom that could be feared beyond the borders of reason – It was just necessary realism, possibly the bare minimum necessary to live in this day and age. If the catastrophe were to repeat, if people were to lose their houses and livelihoods, their orderly life and their significant others, they would hardly care whether he was a clueless kid at an age that adults commonly associated with a reputation of imminent trouble – especially if they were complete strangers who only knew him as 'That guy who fucked everything up'.

It wasn't even a matter of speculation, there were clear precedents:

Touji hadn't cared. Those ladies from the supermarket hadn't cared. Misato hadn't cared when he acted against her orders.

He had forgiven, but he was unable to forget, as much as he'd like to erase those thoughts and the seeds of doubt that came with them just to be able to interact with people who had now become important to him without that constant baggage in the back of his mind.

In his position as the only pillar holding up the earth ball, he couldn't do much to evade this constant certainly: If he were to lose, if he were to make the slightest mistake, perhaps without even realizing (after all, no one ever told him anything more than the bare minimum about just what he was supposed to be doing here) the survivors themselves would make sure that his head was severed from his shoulders.

"That is, if I'm even alive afterwards…"

Yes.

To be here thinking and feeling things, he would have to have survived… but how long was it since he last felt truly alive?

And all this pain, the endless, excruciating pain…

It must've been a close call.

But did he not already know how dangerous this could be?

Only recently, he'd had the pleasure of welcoming two laser whips into his innards.

And still, he had climbed right back into this thing… so everyone could take it for granted? So he could be beaten up for getting something wrong because he was too busy fighting for his life?

It just wasn't worth it.

Even a pathetic, meek good-for-nothing like him could tell that this equation was unlikely to produce positive values. Which led him right back to the question that had plagued him ever since his arrival:

"What am I even doing here?"

He didn't have any real reason to stay…

So why _had_ he stayed, why did he even _come_ here?

"I hoped that something might _change_ , that something _good_ might happen to me for a change…" he heard the foolish, naïve little boy within him speaking, the side that wanted nothing more than for his father to give him a proud pat on the shoulder. "I didn't expect to be put through hell." His embittered, disappointed present-day-self added.

He looked at himself – heavy with despair, sitting next to a bag that looked much too large for him, just like he did ten years ago.

He was apparently in agreement with himself, then.

He had come here – and stayed – because he had been foolish and naïve, because he hadn't learnt a thing since his father sent him away.

There hadn't been any use in sticking around to begin with…

But just as he was ready to forsake everything, the gloom of this place was broken by a high and clear voice, sent by a wondrous, determined-looking girl that stood upright in the middle of this wagon, whereas he was barely bothering to sit in a way that wasn't notably slumped forward, she, whose radiance had been shining like a distant lighthouse in all the time he had spent wandering through this darkness, never quite vanishing from his thoughts, even now, when she most likely hated him.

Only much later would he come to understand that she'd already begun to give her form to what little shreds of hope there were left in his heart, hope that people were somehow capable of understanding each other at least a little, that Misato and the others were serious about him after all.

The hope that he might still be able to get closer to _her_ , that one day he might be capable of acting without feeling ashamed of his deeds right afterwards, like that one time on the day he protected her, when he climbed into EVA 01 in her stead.

The hope that what he'd built himself here was _real_ and would be lost if he left now. That he might be capable of becoming a better human being.

"So you're going to run away again, like you've always run from unpleasant things?" she asked, leaving it to him to decide whether she hadn't been as accusing as she should have been. "Could you live with that?"

"Live?" Shinji brushed the complaining voices in the back of his head aside, and reacted with a bizarre mixture of petulance and resignation.

What point was there in any of this?

"Why should I want to live at all?!" he shouted into the room, revealing the real question behind most of his previous brooding.

"I don't particularly want to die right now, but when I really look at it, I'm not really important to anyone… Not to my father, and not even to Misato-san. They just need someone – _anyone! –_ to pilot Unit One." He admitted to himself with a progressively growing acerbic quality around his displeasure that he was barely bothering to suppress anymore.

If he hadn't left when he had the chance one week ago, then it had to be because he somehow retained some sort of desire to remain here, but he didn't know if that was… alright. It was true that he feared being extinguished by an angel, but he was just as afraid of vanishing simply because there was no reason for him to exist.

He knew for a fact that he was weak. And as much as he hated himself for that weakness, he just couldn't stand any of this any longer.

"That's why I need to get back into Unit One. If I don't do it, I don't have any right to stay here."

He couldn't stand the thought of everything continuing without him, with his meager contribution fading into insignificance as the future kept expanding and the length of the past stayed the same like any memory must – The thought of Misato, Touji, Kensuke, Ayanami and even his father simply… continuing as if he'd never come here to begin with, that all the suffering he'd already invested in this venture had been for naught, just another dangling end, an aborted endeavor lost in the sands. But neither did he have the strength to continue; His whole being, physically and mentally, folded under the pain like a house of cards.

He simply lacked the capacity to do this, he flat out didn't have it!

They were the ones who pretty much drafted him into this job to begin with.

 _They_ were the ones asking the impossible of him, offering neither reward nor even compensation.

Personal motivations aside, expecting him to not just attempt, but succeed in this had never been a reasonable option to begin with.

And besides-

"What if I _do_ go back, and then…"

Halfheartedly closing his eyes as he felt it welling up, Shinji surrendered to what he believed to be his destruction, as its golden waves enveloped him in its blinding radiance, and let himself be swept away by the baked, static-hot taste of hot light, until not even ashes remained.

* * *

"EVA 01 has been recovered successfully!"

"I'm going to the cages!" Misato announces hastily, stepping onto the one-person elevator Commander Ikari tended to use. "Take care of the rest!"

"We certainly will." Dr. Akagi assured before turning towards her subordinates, wasting little time in issuing further orders appropriate to the serious nature of the situation: "Keep a rescue team on standby. We need to cool down the LCL without delay!"

"The pilot's brainwaves are unstable. Pulse is very weak!" Hyuuga announced.

"Set all Life support systems to maximum. And defibrillate!"

"Aye!"

A sudden jerk went through the boy's lifeless body that was still floating in the superheated LCL like a mushy vegetable in a boiling cooking pot.

"Pulse confirmed!" Hyuuga reported, although Dr. Akagi knew better than to allow herself sighs of relief yet: "Remove the entry plug! Get rid of the LCL!"

Since the entire Evangelion was still steaming hot – including the half-molten main hatch – the whole control module had to be lifted from the entry plug by a mechanical arm.

Even after the LCL had been expulsed, columns of vapor kept rising from each and every of the structures – the rescue team had to show up in heat protection suits to take him away, bleeding profusely from his mouth and both nostrils, his hair and face both sticky with sweat and LCL as they pulled a breathing mask over the latter.

Misato could only watch from behind a thick layer of security glass and quietly whisper his name.

She of all people could impossibly have missed the faint, but recognizable stench of denatured protein that accompanied all other expected components as they finally wheeled him past her, still in his plug suit, but despite the primal, repulsing nature of these stirred memories, she followed until she was stopped by the imposing metal doors of the operating room, forcing her to remain behind while they were cut him out of his suit, covered him in an incomprehensible spaghetti salad of electrodes and stuck him in a black life support chamber that uncomfortably resembled a coffin.

The leader of the operations division could only think of one appropriate summary for the most recent battle effort: "Damnit."

But she was well aware that she didn't have any time to waste with cursing at her own powerlessness, the angel was still floating high above them and while Misato had yet to be informed of this, it had already begun to implement the next phase of its plan, which involved twisting its lowermost cover into a drill.

She had to think of a way to make sure that this disaster would never repeat itself.

She owed that to the boy who has just risked his life for all of them.

If not for anything else, then because she had gotten him into this.

She got him into this, and it very nearly killed him.

* * *

"Kensuke?"

Whatever the boy in question had been doing on the PC in front of him, he was rather quick to close the incriminating window.

"Dad? You're home already?"

"I'm just here for a brief stop. Today's probably going to be a long day, I might be late tonight… what are you doing on my Computer?"

"N-Nothing! I'm just installing a new game on my own, and it's taking pretty long, so I thought-"

"Never mind! In any case, one of your friends just phoned. He wants you to call him back."

"One of my friends…? _Which_ friend? Did he tell you his name? Was it Ikari?"

"It was the tall one with the big ears. Suzuhar-kuna, was it?"

"Touji?!"

Kensuke instantly jumped from his chair and stormed towards the nearest phone, right past his somewhat confounded father. He was half finished with typing in the number when he remembered that he wasn't alone in the room.

"Uh… Don't mind me, Dad. Just go get your snack and go back to work, alright?"

"O-Okay…"

* * *

"FINALLY! JUST WHAT TOOK YOU SO LONG?!"

"Calm down first." Kensuke asked, deciding to put a short safety distance between the phone and his ear. "My old man only just told me about your call, and I had to wait 'till he was out of my hair. What's the matter?"

"They let us out of the shelters, but a large chunk of the inner city is still sealed off, and there wasn't any victory announcement. The usual news blackout is still in place. You're the one who's always suspiciously well informed, so you tell me. What the heck is going on?"

"Well, _that's_ what I was just trying to research!"

"Then spill it already!"

"From the way it looks, they haven't lifted the restrictions because they haven't won the battle yet."

"What are you saying?!"

"As far as I could tell, the newest Angel is still in the restricted area, completely unharmed at that. The reports were pretty complicated, but apparently, that thing turned out to have some insanely powerful weapon much stronger than anything NERV expected it to have. The EVA got pretty much _toasted_. _"_

"WHAT?!" Touji shouted right into the telephone, subjecting his friend's eardrum to another harsh test.

"What happened to Ikari? Don't tell me-"

"Oh, so now you're openly admitting that you're worried about him?"

"Of course I am! He's one of us now, isn't he? So spill already!"

Kensuke donned a small smile that Touji couldn't see, but still very much heard at his end of the wire, mostly in his friend's pleased tone of voice.

"He's okay."

Touji audibly exhaled.

"Seems like NERV suffered a pretty dramatic defeat and he only just made it out alive, but they seem pretty confident that they can get him patched up in time for round two."

"Somehow that's not as much of a comfort as it should be." Touji then admitted.

"You know what Ikari's like. He _won_ last time, and he was still so upset about it that he almost left the city. If it really was as bad as you say, then… I wouldn't be too surprised if…"

"…if he no longer feels like getting back into the EVA." Kensuke added gravely, completing the sentence.

"Hm…" Touji appeared to be thinking hard.

"We… we need to do something about this. Last time, I was too much of a coward to apologize right away, and because of that, he must have been feeling like he put himself through all of that suffering for _zilch_. And he's not the only one whom I could have spared some brooding… You were right. Sakura-chan was right, too. This time's gotta be different. This time, we have to show him that he's… not alone anymore…

Kensuke? Can you look up a few things for me?"

"Aye aye, Sir! What would you like me to look up?"

"Get me a list with the phone numbers of our whole class. Get me Ikari's phone number, too! Not his private one, I've already got it but I doubt he's taking his cell phone into battle. NERV's gotta have some sort of PR bureau, get me _their_ number.

And… find out when and where he'll be departing for the next battle."

"What for? I didn't think you'd be interested in seeing another battle up close after we nearly got squashed last time…"

"Of course I'm not, only you could be that suicidal! Doesn't mean we can't cheer him on a bit _before_ the actual battle starts. If possible, together with all of our classmates.

And maybe we can persuade Ayanami to show up in a cheerleader-costume, I'm sure our 'great superhero' would appreciate the fanservice..."

Kensuke laughed. "I'm sorry, but you're going to have to scratch that last part. She's being deployed as well this time. I can't wait to see her Evangelion! I wonder if it'll be just as cool as Ikari's. Ah, how I wish I could go with them…"

_"Kensuke…"_

* * *

But before the boys would be able to find out any specifics about time and place of the next strike against the angel, those would need to be decided upon – much like the entire rest of the strategy, since the colossal failure of the usual 'neutralize AT-field and hit it until it dies' method had sent the staff of NERV headquarters right back to the drawing boards, which were currently being scribbled on in preparation for an emergency meeting.

There was a specific accommodation prepared for such eventualities, which you might call a conference hall or a war room, where the staff had gathered around a large, luminescent table with integrated screens that Misato had already successfully covered in empty coffee cans of her favorite brand. (Prodüct Placemènt)

Besides Misato, whose preparations involved an applied hair tie in addition to the caffeine, perhaps to convince herself that the gloves were off now without discarding any actual gloves, the gathering included Dr. Akagi and her assistant Ibuki, furthermore Hyuuga, Aoba, Mitsurugi senior and Rei, who was sitting in a corner a dark corner of the room between the light cones of the various screens, still holding the Commander's glasses.

She appeared to be listening carefully, but neither spoke nor moved from her spot, where she might as well have been overlooked if it wasn't for her unusual hair color and her clothing. She had no changed out of her plug suit so that she might be ready for further orders at any time, and the white enveloping her body gave her the semblance of a ghostly apparition inside the uncertain dark.

A closer look, however, might have revealed the subtlest hints of worry on her features.

"Okay, okay…" Misato opened the meeting, playing with the pen in her hand to make the looming conclusion go away. "Let's have a look at all that Data we collected."

"Judging from the results of our various experiments, we've concluded that the angel attacks and destroys every perceived threat within a defined perimeter with its particle beam…" Mitsurugi summarized.

"So we can basically forget about getting near enough for close-quarters combat…" Misato concluded, far from pleased with her own admission. "What about its AT-field?"

"It's continually active, and judging by the spatial phase shift, it will be very hard to neutralize and… almost impossible to break through." Ibuki explained.

"Bombs and induction cannons should be useless." Hyuuga added.

"So both attack and defense are nearly perfect. That thing's practically a floating fortress… You said no bombs?"

"Well, according to the Magi, breaking through the AT-field would require an N² mine of such explosive force that headquarters would inevitably be destroyed along with it…"

"Magi II in Matsushiro… independently arrived at the same conclusion." Dr. Akagi completed. "Nonetheless, the UN forces are still petitioning for us to give that option sufficient consideration."

"That's easy for them to say if they're not the target… and if this place falls, it's all over either way." Misato, who had been leaning back in her chair until now reverted to an upright position.

"What about that bothersome probe?"

"It has a diameter of about 17,5 meters and since it's deployment, the enemy has steadily been drilling straight towards the geofront, straight through two layers of armored plating." Mitsurugi reported. "It's currently having its way with the third."

"So the enemy has come to attack us directly this time…" Misato concluded. This was getting better by the second.

"If our simulations are correct and the angel maintains its present velocity…" Aoba continued "…we can assume that the angel will have broken through all 22 layers of armor and breached the geofront by tomorrow, zero hours, six minutes and 56 seconds…"

"That means we have less than ten hours…" Misato repeated, accompanied by a conspicuous twitch in the wings of her nose.

They were stuck between Scylla and Charybdis.

"What's the status of Unit One?"

"Still damaged from the battle and not fully operational yet. The complete chest plate and parts of the tertiary armor are hopelessly molten." The fake blonde related. "We are extremely lucky that at least the central control unit remained intact."

"Three seconds longer, and the Eva would have been out of commission." Ibuki elaborated. "There's no way we can replace all these components in less than three hours."

"I see…" Misato replied, anything but pleased. "And Unit Zero?"

"…isn't fully calibrated and hence not fully operational either." Ibuki proceeded to explain. "…the activation test was successful, but we still have that feedback problem… Actual combat should still be…"

"…out of question." Misato completed, taking the words right out of her colleague's mouth. "As for the pilot of unit one… how badly is he injured?"

"Physically? Not at all. His nerve pulses are still 0.8 index points higher than normal, but that's still in the tolerable range."

"We now have nine hours and 55 minutes until the estimated time of breach." Hyuuga reminded them, dispelling any however theoretical improvement in Misato's mood that might have been brought on by the news that the worst had been barely avoided.

"…the outlook isn't particularly rosy, is it?"

"You could very much say that our hands are tied." The leader of the technical division agreed.

"So, should we wave the white flags?" Hyuuga suggested, half serious.

"Not a bad idea…" Misato answered with a devious grin, apparently concocting some sort of idea. "…but there's just one little thing I'd like to try first…"

* * *

"You want to destroy the angel with a long-distance sniper attack?"

"Yes. Given the current situation, we have no choice but to break through the AT-field with a high-energy weapon, since we have no way of neutralizing it."

The Commander, on the other hand, was just interested in one thing: "What do the Magi say?"

"According to the vote of our three magi-supercomputers, the plan is feasible, that is, conditionally feasible, with a probability of 8,7%."

"It is the most promising plan we currently have. Do it."

"Yes, Sir."

* * *

"That plan of yours is complete lunacy!"

"Lunacy? The operation is completely feasible. If you have a better plan that can be implemented in less than nine hours, go ahead and tell me. I'm all ears."

Dr. Akagi didn't seem particularly convinced.

"Are you sure about this?"

* * *

"Our positron rifles aren't designed to withstand such massive energy densities. Even with our best weapons, we could hardly even scratch that AT-field. What do you intend to do about this?"

"Isn't it obvious? If ours is insufficient, we'll just have to borrow one that can handle more power!"

"…borrow? You don't mean-"

"Yes, exactly." Misato turned to face her colleague with a confident grin.

"You have read that secret dossier about that new military prototype as well, haven't you?"

* * *

"In accordance with my special authorizations as member of NERV, I hereby confiscate this positron canon for the purpose of national defense!" Misato declared, apparently right in her element as she held a stack of documents into the faces of a rather displeased-looking general and his flock of nonplussed researchers.

The elation on their part was conceivably sparse.

"B-but…"

"We will do our best to return it in mint condition. Thank you for your cooperation." Misato explained with poise, swiftly turning around to give Rei the signal that she could finally take the weapon.

The military's henchmen were appropriately flabbergasted when their hangar's entire roof was pushed aside by a one-eyed giant painted with bright, orange varnish.

"Try to be careful with it." Misato casually advised. "This is delicate equipment."

"But Captain… According to our calculations, we're still going to need at least 180 kilowatts to break through that AT-field…" Hyuuga, who had come along as well cautiously inquired. "Just where are we going to get that much energy?"

Unlikely as it seemed, Misato had already devised an answer for this question. Her confident smirk didn't leave her face for a second: "From everywhere!" she began, allowing herself a dramatic pause before elaborating on her initial laconic proclamation: "From all over our country!"

* * *

_"We apologize for this interruption. This is a crisis-related broadcast. From 11:30 pm today through early morning tomorrow, a large scale blackout is planned all over japan. Thank you for your cooperation."_

The same message appeared simultaneously on millions of televisions, advertisement screens and other electronic mass media; The announcement echoed in all streets, helicopters carried the news across the entire country to all of its citizens – this included Touji and Kensuke, who had since gathered together for a visit to the local McDonalds followed by a course of video games to fight off the worry and agitation and now found themselves staring at the screen.

"Do you think that's somehow related to… you know…" Touji began to ask once the announcement had begun repeating itself.

"Of… course!" Kensuke replied, initially uncertain, but increasingly convinced by the time he had formed the second word. "I'm sure Misato-san must have come up with some cool plan."

"Ah, Misato-san! It's rare to see such a hot babe having brains in addition to hotness these days!"

"It's a real pity that we can't witness the fruits of her work up close… Say, Touji, can't we-"

"Forget it! Being nearly squashed _once_ is more than enough for me. Besides, your exploits already cost me one month's worth of pocket money. My old man was _furious_ …"

"Still. We _do_ have a plan to implement before they stuff us all back into the shelters, don't we?"

"I guess you're right about that one. Let's go."

* * *

Hikari, who had been researching something school-related on her laptop, also found herself turning towards the TV apparatus she hadn't been paying all too much attention to. From the looks of it, a new battle was approaching… she could only hope that nothing would go wrong this time… This time, she'd have to keep a particularly close eye on those two stooges, lest they incur any broken bones.

* * *

For Mitsurugi Nagato, the announcement arrived while he was busying himself with some sudokus, having only just finished his homework.

At this point, he already knew that a new battle would be taking place – his father had phoned earlier and explained that he probably wouldn't come home before the first signs of daybreak.

Which probably meant that the two Children would be facing the enemy in the heart of the night. The mere concept still felt surreal to him, that normal kids who had been frequenting the same real, tangible classrooms as him would now be forced to stand and fight in the place of soldiers.

It was just too absurd.

That shy boy who had spoken to him the day before…

Nagato had a hard time imagining him as a warrior.

His ostensible pair of friends had only just called – two rather loud, energetic fellows whose room-filling presence Nagato himself found somewhat intimidating or at least mildly uncomfortable. They looked exactly like the chaotic sort of people capable of coming up with just any crazy, unprecedented idea with little provocation, and he didn't think he could deal with that. He distantly wondered how exactly these two had managed to befriend a serious, tentative figure like Ikari, but in any case, they certainly _did_ seem to be his supporters – they had suggested that the whole class assemble on the school roof to cheer the pilots on, which included not only Ikari, but also that strange girl. Nagato himself had, of course, declined; They were supposed to be in the shelters by then. Things needed to have their order, after all, this city was supposed to be part of a war effort.

And anyways, if he showed up there after declining before, he would just attract strange looks.

It was out of question.

But despite the seemingly obvious situation, Nagato found himself wondering if made the right decision, as certain as he was that any teacher or public worker was sure to tell him "yes".

Sure, he hardly knew anything of that boy, and even less about the girl, but at least the former seemed to have attempted to be nice to him… or at least, that's what he thought.

And, as his father had explained to him often enough, both these children would be defending the whole world tonight.

Fourteen-year-olds as saviors of the world.

He'd been struggling to reconcile that idea with the observable reality around him ever since his father first introduced him to the idea.

And it had to be _these_ particular fourteen year olds, of all possible choices.

Nagato was too well educated to actually comment on it in public, but what sort of parents actually allowed their daughter to completely bleach her hair at this age, much less dye it a bright sky blue of all things.

The girl herself was strange, too.

Nagato guessed that it was none of his business either way.

Sighing, Nagato put his Sudokus aside and rose from his dark wooden desk, proceeding to tug on the dark, heavy curtains of his room ever so slightly until he could peer outside.

No matter how often he blinked or subtly shook his head, it was still out there, glistening in the setting sun, slowly, but steadily turning on its axis.

An enormous, blue _thing_ , a foreign body of glistening, blank faces in floating geometric shapes in a world made of intricately textured reliefs and details, of things yielding to gravity.

Through a whim of coincidence, the Mitsurugi residence happened to be relatively close to the restricted area. Already incredulous when he heard such unreal accounts from the mouths of his classmates, Nagato had never seen the matters of his father's work outside of seemingly controlled environments, labs, at most.

He could barely accept that this ludicrous thing was really physically there.

* * *

"What about our defenses?" Misato asked through the intercom.

"In this short time, we couldn't improvise anything more than a simple shield."

"That is… a shield?" Ibuki asked, uncertain.

Dr. Akagi nodded. "It's a heat shield from the underside of a dismantled space shuttle. It may look bulky and impractically shaped, but it's coated in a special electromagnetic isolator.

It should be able to withstand the particle beam for at least 17 seconds. Section 2 guarantees that… is that right?"

Asahina, dressed in black as always, her costume looking somewhat out of place amongst the futuristic layout of the armory hand, was leaning on a handrail without facing the other women.

"By optimistic estimates, it might even last for twenty."

"Very well." Misato concluded. "How is the assembly of the weapon coming along?"

"We're 3,2% behind schedule." A young female Technician by the name of Agano responded. "But we'll most definitely be finished by 23:10!"

"That's good to hear."

"Perhaps." Dr. Akagi chimed in. "But you're still fully dependant on a completely untested weapon and pumping unprecedented amounts of energy into it. There isn't even proper guidance software for that thing, so we're going to need an Evangelion to fire it…

I'm not surprised that the UN-Forces are participating in this, but just how in the world did you convince the home affairs ministry and the Japanese self-defense forces to go along with this madness?"

"A few of them… still owed me the occasional favor."

"I guess drastic situations call for drastic measures..."

"Speaking of which, did you already come up with a good firing location?"

At the touch of a button, Hyuuga summoned the image of a map to one of the screens surrounding them.

"There is only one place that has both the rightdistance to the target and opportune geographic features as well as the necessary infrastructure for the energy supply."

Misato appeared pleased with the image.

"Of course! I should have thought of that myself!

We're firing from the peak of Futagoyama mountain!

How's unit one?"

"It's currently being equipped with universal G-type sniping equipment for nonstandard weaponry! It will be ready to deploy in two more hours."

"Very well. The operation will begin tomorrow at zero hours. From now on, it is codenamed 'Operation Yashima'!" Misato declared. "All that's left now is the pilot!"

"All that's left? You say that like it's some sort of minor afterthought." Dr. Akagi commented. "What are you going to do if he refuses to do it?"

Misato narrowed her eyes.

She would love to trust in this boy who was so much like her, but realistically speaking, the good Doctor's concern was all but misplaced. She had done her part, organized the equipment, crafted the plan… while Akagi and the other technicians had doubtlessly been working with their wondrous little gadgets to make firing this gun as easy as possible; All the little gears were assembling, waiting for their centerpiece to take his painstakingly minimized, but still uniquely crucial role as the heart of the clockworks.

But would that suffice to make Shinji understand what Misato had been trying to get into his head for almost two months now?

Would it be enough to show him that he would not be facing this battle on his own?

* * *

Incidentally, that was the very same question Suzuhara Touji was asking himself as he hung up the bright green public phone after having finished his call.

All around him, announcements could be heard, mixed with the steps of a thousand people on their ways to their safe and sturdy shelters.

Hikari, who had been waiting for him to finish to make sure that he (and Kensuke) would be coming with the rest of their class, was standing a bit closer to the waiting group, and – this was the crucial part – starting to get visibly impatient.

"Okay then… let's go." Touji concluded with certain traces of tension in his voice, mostly addressing his nearby friend, who replied with a simple, affirmative sound.

The two were already turning to leave the phones behind when they heard a voice calling from within the nearby crowd of uniformed students: "…Wait a bit!"

It was the new student, this Mitsurugi guy, easily recognizable from the bandage around his head. For a moment, the two suspected a fleeting impression of hesitant reluctance on his features – but only for a moment.

"Excuse me! Excuse me for only saying this now, it wasn't my intention to cause further delays…" he apologized, relatively formal given the reason for this conversation: "Could I please… as well…?"

Touji and Kensuke blinked in Mitsurugi's general direction, somewhat surprised.

So far, he had given off the impression of being something of a swotter or at least some disinterested loner, at very least, he hadn't shown interested in their little 'excursion' to the launch pads – which made it surprising to see him show interest in or worry about Shinji, even when taking into account the minuscule amount of time they had remotely known each other.

As a consequence, Hikari was the first to compose an answer: "It's all right, Mitsurugi-kun, just go ahead. But please hurry, we don't have all day."

* * *

"The pilot of unit one worries me." Fuyutsuki admitted amidst his thoughts, observing the landscape of the geofront beyond the large panorama windows of the commander's office.

By contrast, his superior sat at the core of the darkness, in his unzipped, neglected uniform, hidden away behind his tinted glassed, his back turned to the light of a world in which he'd lost all interest a long,long time ago.

"The Dummy Plug is still in development. Until it is available, we have no choice but to rely on the current pilot."

"And what if he refuses? Brainwashing?"

It didn't occur to Ikari to ask what kind of man his subordinate thought him to be.

He knew very well what everyone inside these walls thought of him, and he knew that there was no point in trying to change it.

So he saved his breath, evaded a direct answer and instead said something that should placate his subordinate's doubts.

"…if things don't work out, we still have Rei."

"…Rei? You want Rei to pilot Unit One _now_?" Notably alarmed, Fuyutsuki incredulously turned in his superior's direction. "That's far too dangerous."

"…to defeat the remaining angels… we need to utilize all resources available to us."

Fuyutsuki turned back to the glass wall, examining the horizon without real relief.

"There is so much at stake…"

Ikari abstained from further words.

He found them unnecessary.

Of course he was aware of all risks and variables that had been part of their endeavor to begin with – But a large portion of all these events had already been set in stone since time immemorial.

Besides, as far as the Third Child was concerned, he had already… taken certain measures.

* * *

The blue haired girl sat on her stool like a statue on its pedestal, her legs closely together, her school bag arranged on her tighs, her hands placed left and right of the commander's discarded spectacle case.

Word- and motionless, with skin like white marble, she sat there, her unwavering red eyes transfixed on the 'occupied' sign of the operating room, until the light behind it faded.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) It was very important to me to portray the whole incident with Ramiel's laser beam as religious levels of horrible. It certainly was for Shinji; If I can't make the audience feel his fear, I want them in awe. I want the emotional progression to what follows next to be clear, if that's not beyond my abilities. You see, they have this scary term 'clinicaly dead' for when your heart stops and has to be restarted…
> 
> (2) I think there was a bit of a theme of the angels being vaguely parallel to the people who fight them; Maybe there was, maybe there wasn't, if there was, I didn't want to ruin it, but a lot of this is also influenced by my own observations/ideas/imagination of/on what Ramiel's perspective could be like. There won't always be the time/story weight to give each and any Angel "personality", but I wanted to do a bit of that here or there, at least enough to set precedents. They're supposed to be not that much unlike humans, after all. It was also important to me to get the idea/concept of "promised land" in there, with all its edges, warts and implications.
> 
> (3) You didn't pay that much mind to Shinji's "…if I lose, everyone will hate me" in 1.11, didn't you? "He's just saying that because he's got issues…" Looks a lot harsher in hindsight, doesn't it? Becoming universally loathed IS a real concern when your actions may affect, let one ruin tons of people you don't personally know. You see it with celebrities and politicians all the time, but sadly, a competent asshole gets more respect than an incompetent average joe in our world – it's just how it works. Something Q generally did was put the threat back in a lot of things from the original – for example, everyone was always so freaked out about Unit One going berserk, when it ultimately ended up working in their favor/getting rid of the angel most of the time. Well, it's a copy of something that does impacts, and Ritsuko knows it. That's why… I actually retroactively inserted a few lines into this chapter after Q to give that statement its proper underlining. I hardly had the narrative comment on it at all when I first wrote this/dwelt on other, more obvious lines. I feel kind of stupid for not recognizing this earlier. Sorry Shinji, seems like I'm still far from being worthy of calling myself one of your number one fangirls… I didn't mean to make Shinji too world-savy with that paragraph, he sure isn't, but I figured it would be a… "distant general knowledge thing". I'd imagine the post-impact world after the chaos and the wars, in regards to how people have had to accept the reality of human ugliness, as a more extreme version of modern-day Germany – central Europe's one of the most peaceful places on the earth nowadays, few actually know war and it only ever happens far away, few have 'catastrophe experience', but you can't walk past any historic building without noticing a place that says it's only a replica of the actual historic building that had a bomb fall on it some time ago. That sort of… ubiquity.
> 
> (4) Let's face it. Misato's favorite part about working in a secret organization working to preserve life on earth is probably being allowed to take other people's stuff. XD
> 
> (5) In the next chapter, you shall witness what it without doubt the blazing, radiant climax of the first act. Observe the birth of a hero and the forging of a bond that will decide the fate of the world when everything piques in an epic confrontation at the summit of the Futagoyama. Also, Shinji might finally get his much needed… well, a hug is perhaps too much to ask at this point, but if he succeeds in kicking plenty of angel butt, he might just earn himself a hand to hold… Does an octahedron even have a butt to be kicked in? That, and more, awaits you in chapter 14: [You are (not) alone], or: [In front of the person I admire] Angels of Doom are com-ming! *hums melody*


	15. 14: 14:[You are (not) alone] or:  [In front of the person I admire]

_I've been_

_watching your world from afar_

_I've been_

_trying to be where you are_

_And I've been_

_secretly falling apart_

_Unseen_

_To me_

_You're strange and you're beautiful_

_And you'd be_

_So perfect with me but you just_

_Can't see_

_You turn every head but you don't_

_see me_

_I'll put a spell on you_

_You'll fall asleep_

_'Cause I put a spell on you_

_And when I wake you_

_I'll be the first thing you see_

_And you'll realize that you love me_

_-Aqualung, 'Strange and beautiful'_

* * *

Shinji vaguely recalled having opened his eyes in a dark place, only to be welcomed back to the world of the living by a dazzling, blinding light.

He could still feel the light dancing, blooming under his skin, bright as midday sun, prickling and irritating like a nest of ants, fluctuating in the manner of undulating water.

The searing hell fire's tingling afterglow still lingered on every corner of his outline, almost like a caress, enveloping every minuscule skin fold, every single hair, and remained his only companion in this precarious state between being and nothingness, almost a reassuring whisper gently assuring that he had yet to cross the line to the latter, not if he could still feel pain, not when every neuron in his body was still leaking a disruptive excess of signals that made coherent perception impossible even as they dissipated, when every pathways was till ringing with delayed refractions of freshly-formed memories that had burned themselves as deeply into his flesh as his soul; They surrounded him like ornaments of molten metal, heat so divine, pain so intense that it stopped being recognizable as such – towards the end, all he could perceive was a radiant, all consuming light that had taken all senses from him, gradually reduced his entire being to nothingness, up until the point he lost consciousness – he didn't have any memory of the exact moment this happened, for there was little capacity for clear thought left in him at that time, mostly preoccupied with formulating the desperate wish to finally be destroyed for good, for the molecules that constituted him to be stripped to their carbon skeletons, so that the endless, ceaseless conga line of suffering that tied the last fourteen years together could finally cease – in the end, even that was extinguished, and he felt like he had become a star, or perhaps a divine apparition, a burning bush, roasting, but not charring, screaming for a man whose ears had been deaf to his voice to begin with, falling into pieces to revive from the ashes like a phoenix, for the sole purpose of being immolated all over again, yet another burnt offering on that uncaring man's bio-mechanical altar.

Another? For an instant, he was able to hang on to a vague, elusive sense that there was another person he should be thinking of, but he couldn't anchor her in any sort of internal order that would mark her as part of reality; He had long since lost any sense of time or the ability to draw any clear answers from the overloaded circuits that were supposed to hold his memories – Towards the end, he was no longer certain that he hadn't died at some undefined point in time, and that all of this wasn't hell.

Thus, he had become alike to a star in a wholly different way, for the very creators that ignited them unspeakable time ago had placed them so far apart that even light needed centuries, or even eons to connect them, surrounded in all directions by an incomprehensible vastness of empty space – that was exactly how Shinji had felt, as if he were trapped inside the molten core of the earth, separated from any other living being by layers upon layers of rock and stone, caught inside his tiny metallic capsule.

All alone.

He had screamed and screamed, begged and begged, but no one had answered his pleas...

No one had as much as moved a finger to release him from his agony...

Just what did these people think they were asking of him?

Did they really expect him to keep defeating the never ending deliveries of such terrifying monsters, all by himself?

Even Shinji himself was painfully aware that he was just a normal kid... no, not even that!

He was an useless failure if there ever was one!

How was he of all people supposed to handle the truly herculean task they were imposing on him?

He... was afraid. His pounding heart could burst from the mere thought that it might not be long before he would have to endure more of this torment...

He...

He was still alive.

Although the light of divine punishment was still burning in his retinas, he _had_ to be alive to perceive the stinging and burning that it caused at the back of his rapidly moving eyeballs, to be aware of the clammy layer of sweat that clung to every part of his body, to feel the wild beating of his heart as it struggled to normalize its rhythm while adjusting to produce the level of pressure needed to sustain a conscious state.

Little by little, the persistent afterimages of the battle began to be first overlaid, then displaced by new sensory input, until his eyes adapted to the overload of brightness to the point that they were ultimately able to construct an image coherent enough to stir his brain from its stupor, allowing him to realize that he wasn't crossing paths with that particular lamp for the first time.

"It's that ceiling again..." he mumbled, still somewhat disconnected from his surroundings. The lighting in NERV's sickbay was every bit as needlessly bright as it had been after his last near-death experience, rendering all colors even more faded and sallow than his condition would have anyway.

"...that's what I get from piloting EVA..."

But as grotesque and absurd as Shinji found the mere possibility that his body may be adapting to the surreal tribulations of EVA piloting, let alone doing so _successfully_ after the merciless excruciation it had just been put through, he couldn't help but notice that the battle's afterglow and the stupor that came with it dissipated much, much faster than it did on his first visit to this establishment, and soon, he was sufficiently awake to notice yet another significant difference: This time, he wasn't the only person in the large, empty hospital room.

In fact, the first thing he saw when he finally tore his gaze from the lamp, lured by the sound of a turning page, shaking off the last dust clouds of daze as his nerves coordinated the first directed movement after the ordeal they had been put through was a familiar face with a pair of very intent red eyes observing as he propped himself up with his elbow.

"...Ayanami?"

Shinji wondered what in the world she was doing here, and how he could possibly end up keeping watch at his side, perseveringly waiting for his awakening – but a single look downwards was enough to dispel all doubt that she had done just that: She had arranged herself on a small stool next to his bed, and her delicate hands held a small book that she must have been reading until just now.

"Have-... Have you been here all along?"

Shinji didn't understand. Had he not spent the last day not wasting a single opportunity to earn her antipathy, as unintentional as it may have been?

Instead of bothering to ask his essentially superfluous question, she closed her book and instead produced a little red notebook from some unspecified pocket somewhere in her uniform dress and began to read from it, her eyes always following after the words on the paper.

"I am here to introduce you to the schedule of Operation Yashima." she reported in a businesslike fashion. "Today at 19:30 hours, the pilots Ikari and Ayanami are to arrive at Terminal number two. At 20:00 hours, preparations for the departure and transport of both units to the site of operations. Departure at 20:05 hours. At 20:30 hours, arrival at the provisional base at the peak of the Futagoyama. There, the pilots will be awaiting further instructions until the operation officially begins at 00:00 hours."

At first, Shinji just listened in simple bewilderment while she recited the plan, but eventually, he ended up averting his eyes.

From the looks of it, they had already come up with a new plan to try out, everything was already decided and neatly packaged, they totally expected him to go along with whatever they had cooked up like nothing ever happened, and didn't seem to have spared a thought to the idea that he might protest, because who cares if he _nearly died_ the last time!

But he should have known to expect that...

Meanwhile, Rei had pocketed her little notebook and leaned forward to retrieve something from the small trolley next to her seat and throw it on his bed.

Shinji sat up to get a better look at the object – it was a brand new plug suit in different shades of blue, neatly packaged in an envelope transparent plastic with the word "Nerv" printed on it. It was basically identical to his old one – which must have been destroyed when he had been admitted to this place, his half-dead state presumably having necessitated some sort of crude, hurried removal.

He knew that he was supposed to be grateful to her right now, but the truth was that he really didn't feel like seeing this type of clothing right now, and he didn't think he felt like wearing it, either...

"Please be careful not to arrive like this."

At first, Shinji failed to realize what Rei's remark might be supposed to signify and gave her a reaching, confused look – until it came to his notice that he was stark naked under his blanket, the corollary being that he had been presenting Rei with the full frontal view since he just sat up.

This probably meant they were even now.

Nonetheless, the fourteen-year-old boy frantically grabbed his blanket and did his best to get as much fabric between Rei and the X-rated areas of his body as he could possibly manage.

Before long, he had pulled his legs close and raised a mountain of cloth around them, on which he then rested his arms to hide his face between it all.

"I'm sorry...!"

Rei kept looking in his direction, but didn't display any further reaction.

Shinji couldn't say whether this was a good or bad thing.

Warily, he began to raise his head again and glance past his arm, although he still didn't dare look her in the eyes.

He was seriously beginning to consider that he might have some sort of twisted talent for unwittingly stumbling into embarrassing situations, especially if the people involved were females he would like to peacefully coexist with...

The Third Child sighed.

"I've been saying that a lot lately..."

Causing a short noise, Rei straightened herself up and swiftly pushed the trolley next to her into Shinji's direction.

"Your meal."

There was, indeed, a tray with something vaguely resembling food on it to be found there, but the various piles of goop might as well have been plastic and did little to rouse Shinji's appetite – not that there was much that could have done that so soon after he nearly got himself barbecued.

He soon averted his eyes.

"I'm not hungry."

Rei wheeled the trolley back to its original position, but left it in the room.

"We will depart in sixty minutes." Rei added, already in the processes of leaving.

Shinji didn't _want_ her to leave.

He didn't want to be alone with those dreadful thoughts and memories, or everyone's apparent certainty that he was going to do something for which he lacked both the will and capacity necessary.

Even Rei seemed to assume that he fully intended to continue this.

As for Shinji, he was afraid. His entire soul was metaphysically bursting with such horrible dread... But there was no way he could talk about this with Misato or the others. None of them would take his fear seriously, or lend him an open ear, with little to no regard for the boundless horror that was silently ripping him apart from the inside.

And why should they? They were all very busy with impossibly important things, and Shinji was supposed to be a boy after all. They were all expecting him to "stop whining" and prove his valor, but... Shinji simply _wasn't_ a brave person...

In the end, none of that mattered, no one wanted to hear any of this. He didn't have to bother talking to them to know what they would say, their own interests predetermined the scope of what he could expect them to say to him from the start – They would obviously urge him to pilot the Evangelion if he wanted to stay here, and perhaps even mark themselves with some hollow gesture to "cheer him up", when he knew very well that their faith in him amounted to absolutely zilch – he was the unwanted, troublesome child, the unreliable, untrustworthy tool they wished they could replace with a piece of metal if only they had a better grasp on their own fearsome technology... All they wanted, or even _needed_ was someone who would climb into that steel abomination and fight for them, regardless of what might happen to _him –_ It all didn't take long to become some sort of crazy game: _L_ et's just see how badly these monsters would have to break him before NERV's scientist couldn't patch him back together anymore, like he was Humpty Dumpty or something.

In his desperation, he clung to the only person whose reply he couldn't fully anticipate, whose hard demands he couldn't already picture in full color and full motion – Ayanami.

"Do I really... have to get back into this thing?" he asked, although he new the answer very well.

"Yes." she answered without cushioning or artifice, cutting his last thread of hope with a single, simple word. He should have learned to expect this by now.

It wasn't like she was responsible for deciding any of this, and either way, why in the world would she have any kind words to spare for him after he'd thoroughly blown any and all chances he might have had with her? Still, he was unable to keep those words bottled up any longer.

He just wanted to be _heard_ for once.

His father hadn't heard him, hadn't _wanted_ to hear him when he had screamed for him inside the boiling LCL – And in some simple, childlike corner of his mind, making his father's prized confidante listen instead registered as the next best thing.

The ironic thing was, her answers were probably the ones he dreaded the least.

"But I don't... want to..." Shinji admitted, almost accusing.

"Maybe _you_ don't mind because you never came within an inch of your life, but I just can't do this anymore... I don't want to experience any more of these terrible things..." As he went on, his words didn't take long to lose all of their firmness and stopped themselves within an inch of breaking out into sobs.

He was peripherally aware that directing such a display at a girl should feel him with shame, but Ayanami was... different.

At the time, he distantly reasoned that he had already taken notice of the simple matter of course that she was unlikely to react like a normal girl, which, as much as he could have slapped himself for that thought, was very opportune circumstance right now, for he couldn't have held back the flood of pent-up, undignified squalor if he'd wanted to, and even this wanting would have been something he could not muster right now.

"It was so dreadful... I'm so scared... but I can't run away, either..."

"You're afraid of EVA? Alright. Then stay and rest."

Shinji was shocked. No lectures? No expectations? She was letting him off the hook... just like that?

"...but... then..."

"I will pilot Unit One in your place." she explained, tonelessly.

The Third Child couldn't help but gawk at her. "It can be reprogrammed at any time. Dr. Akagi has already completed the preparations."

In certain ways, Shinji felt like the ground had been pulled from beneath his feet.

He had expected to be pressured into piloting by any means available, that everyone involved would subject him to their carefully assorted repertoire of empty phrases ans guilt trips, getting all the more adamant the most he refused, but now, he found himself charging past an open door only to tumble into the abyss behind it – with nothing to oppose, nothing to hold on to, he was falling through thin air – Al he could do was decide, and if he didn't, everything would just continue without him, as if he'd never been here...

But that was besides the point.

To his own honest astonishment, the first impulse to stir up in response to this potential release from the ties that supposedly kept him enchained here was neither relief nor indignation or even fear:

Not _everyone_ was expecting him to subject himself to these horrible things.

This girl, this... almost complete stranger... after he'd spent the better part of the day embarrassing himself in her generl surroundings, she was unflinchingly willing to do what he dared not.

She was going to do battle with the fiend that had nearly claimed his life and would have little trouble doing the same to her, all by herself...

It was just like that other time, when they first met – She knew very well what awaited her, and just accepted it without complaint. Shinji knew all too well that if it the roles were reversed, he would have broken down pleading and begging her not to let him be thrown before that abomination all by himself.

He couldn't stand this, this whole situation – it was like being pulled into a dozen different directions without being able to budge an inch.

He couldn't stand the idea of climbing back into the EVA, he couldn't bear the thought of being responsible if Rei didn't return from the battlefield, but the worst was being stuck with the choice, and knowing that a better person would see none.

This would be so much easier if it was anyone else. Everyone else was asking things of him, demanded that he pay in blood if he wanted them to let him stay here, if he wanted their kindness, gallons upon gallons, be it the blood of the angels, his own, and even that of innocents like Touji's sister, it was all good currency to them.

Everyone else would be dragging, _chasing_ him all the way to the cages, but not Rei.

Not Rei... Of all the people he had personally interacted with so far, she had the _least_ reasons to show him any compassion – Since their first proper conversations, he had not wasted a single opportunity to draw her ire, while he couldn't fault her for anything, and even if he could, even if she _were_ trying to get him to pilot along with anyone else, he would have lost any right to accuse her the moment he had considered leaving her to the angel.

And still, she, who had more reason than anyone else, was the sole person who didn't ask _anything_ of him, the one who didn't judge him for a _moment_ , the one who told him to stay and recover, the onewho had kept watch at his side and stayed with him...

He could see for himself how unfair that was, how ungrateful it would be of him if he didn't accompany her into battle after this... this awareness was always the worst. He knew, he _knew_ and he could hate himself forever for his fear, this filthy primordial self-preservation instinct that would always remain much stronger than the sum of his heart and rational mind squared.

What a disgusting coward he was – even now, in the moment of truth and decision, he still saw himself reaching, attempting to cling to the next best person... but his only company in this painted white prison was turning to leave.

"I need to leave. Dr. Akagi and Captain Katsuragi are waiting for me." Rei explained without turning back another time as she walked towards her guillotine, as every clacking of her soles on the floor brought her closer to the particle beam that would cook her alive.

"AYANAMI!" he called, in the motions of a surprisingly full-blown stirring, of half-baked regrets, but all her got was a last look at her backside of a body that had already stepped into the hallway and a last, quiet "Farewell." before the automatic door cut her off from his view.

For an instant, the horrible feeling that he would never see him again brushed over him like the shiver of a passing train and that cold seemed to have frozen him in place, remaining as he was like a statue, until he finally lowered his head dejectedly and curled into a ball, drawing his legs even closer.

He couldn't do it.

There was just no way.

There was no way in hell he could just leave Ayanami to her fate.

He should leave, he should get up and go after Rei, to where Misato and the others were waiting for him.

He mustn't run away.

He should already have realized just how useless that would be, and he should have done so three years ago – there had been ample time, time in which he had found himself brooding over the same questions again and again... and it was clear that he would continue to do so indefinitely if he didn't budge now.

Moving with jerky urgency, trying to ride this wave of intensity as far as it would carry him, Shinji straightened himself up and looked around in the hope that someone might have thought of leaving him some fresh clothes to wear.

He didn't really feel like marching out of here in a makeshift toga improvised from the bedsheets – If worst came to worst, there was always the plug suit Ayanami had left him, but...

This thought was cut off when he noticed one of his school uniforms haphazardly folded on one of the lower racks of the tray Ayanami had used to deliver his unwelcome meal, but the truth was that part of him did not want to accept this resolution to get back into the violet titan as part of his personal reality, and feeling the plug suit's material tightly pressed to every corner of his skin would make that impossible.

In the end, the sense of obligation he felt towards Ayanami and the others did nothing to alleviate the reality of his endless dread...

* * *

" _STOP RIGHT THERE!_ Just where do you think you're _going_?"

With Kensuke's nigh uncanny knowledge about the workings of such mechanisms and a bit of applied muscular strength courtesy of Touji, the gate leading to the emergency shelter did little to stop the boys, but whimsical as fate could be, their luck left them as soon as they reached the rose golden evening sky behind the heavy steel doors, their doom spelling itself in the shape of the class representative's voice coming from behind them, which is where the girl herself was standing, dressed in her school uniform, her hair tied in her usual twin tails, her face looking anything but amused, especially once she ascertained the large density of uniformed students in the general vicinity of the exit – it was practically the whole of her class.

"Seriously! I really don't know what to say... I would have expected something like this from _you two_ , but I can't _believe_ what the rest of you is doing here! ...Even you, Mitsurugi-kun?" She only just discovered his bandaged head of dark hair at the edges of the unrepentant flock.

"You only just transferred to our class, and you're already participating in this kind of lunacy? I had the impression that you were a more reasonable person! I expected _all of you_ to be more reasonable than this, even you, Suzuhara Touji! You'd think that getting caught up in the _last_ battle would be more than enough for anyone!"

"I'm not _planning_ to stay for the battle!" Touji retorted.

"And you expect me to believe that? Where else would you be going?!"

"We want to cheer on Ikari." Kensuke explained.

"And obviously get the heck out of there _before_ the battle starts." Touji added, since that detail was not necessarily self-evident if his friend was the one speaking. "Kensuke found out when and where he and Ayanami will depart from their underground complex. The real battle is scheduled to take place somewhere else entirely."

"We all know that he can be a little... sensitive at times. So I thought that a little extra motivation couldn't hurt, and had Kensuke invite everyone.

Those two will be risking their asses for us before this night is over, so I really don't think this is the time to be obsessed with protocol!"

Hikari didn't reply right away – until now, she had always perceived Suzuhara Touji as... well, to be honest, as a big-mouthed, trouble-making ruffian. But seeing him worry about the new kid like this, making such a... 'ardent speech', he looked almost downright _heroic_ and unexpectedly mature...

"S-Still...! I have no guarantee that you're telling the truth. How do I know you won't do something incredibly stupid out there as soon as you're out of my sight? I'm supposed to be _responsible_ for our classes' evacuation efforts, in case an of you are familiar with the meaning of that word!"

"Well, class rep, if you really think we need a babysitter that badly, why don't _you_ come with us and make sure for yourself? If we really _do_ anything 'incredibly stupid', you can just go back and rat us out."

Several shouts of "Exactly!" could be heard from the crowd. "You really don't have to be so bossy all the time!"

Hikari paused to think.

"...and what about the others in our class?"

"They're hardly gonna set the shelter on fire just because you won't be there for five minutes. Or, if that really irks you so much, you could just take them with you!"

"...Alright! But I'm bringing my mobile, and if any of you try anything..."

"Yes, I know. We'll be in big trouble. We get it. We need to get going if we don't want to miss the EVAs."

"Hell yes! Let's go!" Kensuke agreed. "I can't wait to check out Ayanami's Evangelion. Just wait until you see how ridiculously awesome these things really are!"

* * *

In the meantime, the preparations for the final showdown were running at full throttle – the provisional base atop the Futagoama had transformed into a bustling anthill: Trucks with new components were almost arriving by the minute, power transformers were being assembled, particle accelerators were being plugged in, superconductive cables were being installed, cooling systems were being tested, until the constant whirring of machinery blended with the voices of the technicians to create a sound reminiscent of a swarm of bees.

Much like its sound scape, the outpost itself was beginning to take a distinctive shape, a giant-sized staircase leading up to its central heart piece that had finally been assembled.

"This here is our positron cannon." Hyuuga explained, for the benefit of the technical division's leader who had only just arrived on-site, having overseen the work on the Evangelions themselves until now. "An untested military prototype."

"It should be able to handle the job, at least on paper..." Dr. Akagi commented until her young assistant informed her that they had finished adjusting the sighting device to the G-type components. "We can't be sure that it won't just explode in our faces until we try it out."

"Well then, let us give that thing the benefit of the doubt."

But Hyuuga's daring bravado did little to soothe Dr. Akagi's worries, since the cannon was not even the main cause at their roots. "...the least reliable component in this setup is still pilot... In the end, all of this depends on whether Misato can persuade him... "

* * *

Impossible.

Try as he might, he could not force himself to do this.

He had dressed himself, called in to accept the mission, even familiarized himself with the finer details of the plans, but when he was supposed to take the last step towards a definite affirmation and report at the cages to finally board the bio-mechanical monstrosity, he found that he couldn't make himself budge.

One step forward, one step back, fairly usual fare for his waste of a life.

He seriously _intended_ to go out there and fight, but...

Shinji was afraid.

Beyond afraid, completely taken over by a heavy, leaden sludge of paralyzing fright that hardened around his limbs until his steps had been slowed to a half halfway across a runway between two of the lager buildings hanging from the ceiling of the geofront and refused to let him advance one more inch – Behind him, all lights had been turned off already, presumably to redirect the power to Misato's herculean endeavor to stop that monster; If he wanted to go back inside, he'd have to rip a sealed security steel door out of its frame. There was only the way forward, into the light, but he dreaded what lay ahead of that path.

The radiance reminded him of his previous battles, one if a nocturnal city full of artificial illumination, two times he was touched by weapons of light – This afternoon's memories were the freshest, the slightest brightness was enough to stir them up, recollections of a light so blinding it could unmake flesh and metal.

He tried to force himself to move, but then he thought of the agony, the terror and utter helplessness, and was swiftly reminded that he couldn't bear them, not even if the form of static memories.

He knew what had to be done and what it required him to do, but accepting that and actually carrying it out were very different things under the pressure of panic – if he let it, it could crush him without even becoming a reality, this mere idea of straining to hoist the entire weight of the world onto his shoulders from where billions of years worth of evolution and development could drop in a single split-second mishap, of being all alone with that weight and the certainty that if, no, _when_ he inevitably failed _no one_ would be coming to save him.

Mishaps could not be avoided indefinitely; Anything that could go wrong _would_ go wrong sooner or later and then, he would be the one who brought the sky crashing down on the people of the earth, simply because he had agreed to try and prevent it – The plates are usually broken by the person who uses them the most...

What was the point of all this?

What did he even think he was doing here?

It wasn't like he knew anything about the forces he was meddling with. Misato, Ayanami and the others may have devoted their lives to this cause, but he wasn't qualified in the slightest. That was a fact. This was not a world where things would work out merely because he really wanted them to. Charging in there like a white knight in shining armor and giving the enemy a scary look was _not_ going to make him invincible of all sudden.

Leaning forward to rest his weight of the bannister framing the walkway, Shinji peered down at the abyss that, to him, seemed as alluring as ever.

He had forced himself out of that bed by telling himself that he would have to gorge himself on an overdose of sleeping pills if Rei were to die after he refused to have any part in that battle, but he had just been kidding himself.

If he had the guts to spare humanity from having to put up with his presence, or even the remote capacity to dispose of himself, he would have done the world this favor three years ago. If Rei were to die because of his ineptitude and cowardice, he would probably have to problem going on his merry way.

So what if he had a whole new reason to feel aggression seething every morning he inspected his mirror image, for the kind of asshole he knew he was, that wouldn't be more than just another drop in the ocean.

Yes, the chasm beneath his feet had seldom looked more attractive to the young Eva pilot, but his situation was like that horrible children's joke about this guy who won second place on an idiot competition... for being an idiot.

He contented himself with merely contemplating the sight of the depht. He'd stared into it for a much longer time before, that time in the mountains, and that was when he found out that he was _seriously_ afraid of heights.

It was useless to try anything, up to this point, he had already come to accept his metaphysical prison.

This was him, Shinji Ikari: Too inept to even die properly, too much of a coward to turn his back on the world for good, let alone save it.

It should be of little surprise then that he didn't have the heart to turn around when he heard slow, but firm steps echoing across the small walkway.

He could already guess that it had to be Misato, that she would have her arms crossed, and that she would have a less than pleased look on her face, sitting in judgement over him with her lofty glare.

"Shinji-kun. You should have reported for duty already!" she admonished. It was practically hilarious that she picked this of all times to start sounding like an actual parent.

Shinji might have laughed if he hadn't felt like screaming.

He didn't know how to answer her.

"You chose to stay of your own, free will, didn't you? So do your job!"

Of course. He had pretty much expected her to pull this sort of tactic.

Like this was an issue of _wanting_...

"I'm afraid, Misato-san. I'm afraid of piloting the EVA." he quietly admitted, his back still turned in her direction. Fearing the cold, sharp words hat could be reasonably expected to follow, he reached to somehow justify himself before she could form her retort.

Why did he even have to be in this situation in the first place? Why him?

Why would _he_ have to come up with any explanations at all?

Last time he checked, _she_ was the one asking unreasonable things of him. She was demanding he go out there and put his life on the line, all by himself, with little to no chance of victory...

"That's easy for you to say, you and the others, you'll just be sitting safely in your bunkers and giving orders... you're leaving all the horrible things to me..."

In the wake of long-suppressed emotions bubbling to the surface, he finally turned away from the handrail, looked Misato in the eye and spoke the words that had been sticking to his tongue for the past six weeks: "Do you have _any idea_ just how _**unfair**_ all this is?!"

Shinji's statements produced a long chain of consecutive reactions in Misato's face, starting with simple shock that he would openly throw such accusations in her face without hiding behind a passive-aggressive veneer of badly faked complacence, to a doubtlessly affected glance aside, sudden realization, a thin smile, and ultimately, a firmed, determined look aimed directly at the disgruntled boy.

If _that_ was his problem, then she knew what to do about it, that, at least, was something he could fix.

"Just come with me for a bit!" she demanded, grabbing her young ward by the wrist, already aware that words alone wouldn't be enough to produce an effect.

She thought she was beginning to understand, at least a little bit.

* * *

The numbers in the elevator's gauge kept getting higher and higher, the little wheels compromising it kept up their steady clicking like a metronome as the small elevator delved deeper and deeper into the abyss of the geofront, to the center of the sphere, of which the little tip compromising the huge subterranean area on which NERV headquarters was built had only been the tip of the iceberg, traveling onwards into the darkness.

Misato kept Shinji's hand safe and warm in her grasp, squeezing it from time to assure him that everything was going according to plan.

The boy kept his eyes averted from her.

He knew that when the actual battle came, her hand would be somewhere completely different.

But even Misato's gaze was, all determination notwithstanding, aimed straight ahead.

This wasn't a topic she was particularly comfortable talking about.

"Fifteen years ago... half of the earth's human population was eradicated in the incident you know as Second Impact. According to the history books, this calamity was caused by a small meteorite hitting the antarctic ice shields at near light speed.

But that is only the official version – what really happened on that day was covered up."

"What? Are you saying everything I ever heard about Second Impact at school was a lie?"

"Exactly. But as a member of NERV, you're allowed... no, _entitled_ to hear the truth.

15 years ago, humanity discovered a large, humanoid being in the antarctic ice... that was the first angel. When they tried to analyze it, it came to life and exploded for yet unknown reasons. That explosion was the Second Impact.

If any of the remaining angels ever succeeds in causing a _Third_ Impact... then it's game over for humanity. No one would survive."

"So in the end, none of this really changes what I've already heard over and over again. I'm supposed to save you all, all by myself."

Misato didn't directly address his complaint, but simply continued with the explanation she had been meaning to give from the start, suspecting that it would be better at convincing him anyway:

"If any angel should ever successfully invade NERV headquarter and breach level EEE, the entire complex is set to self-destruct. To avert Third Impact, we would be willing to sacrifice ourselves. Everyone who works here is aware and agrees with the necessity of such a measure." Misato explained, her voice serious.

And as it usually went when someone spoke of the devil, the little turning wheels of the lift switched to display the letters EEE before she had finished speaking.

Shinji barely managed to note that the letters were printed on blood red ground when the elevator's lighting switched off – but soon, light in ample quantities was entering from outside, an insubstantial, uncertain red glow that matched the surreal wold outside the elevator all too well. Everything seemed drenched in a deep red, and they might have been surrounded by a liquid medium; That, at least would explain the strange, oversized bubbles out there, and the seemingly organic networks and structures that seemed to defy gravity: They resembled oversized microorganisms or perhaps a coating of corals, microscopic slime molds perhaps, or the yolk sacks that unborn organisms carried with them in the earliest stages of their embryonic development.

The way they appeared to be 'rooted' to the 'floor' of this bizarre place, or, if they were growing from the 'ceiling', their way of branching out, was also distantly reminiscent of trees.

The elevator, downright tiny compared to these alien structures, lead them through this layer and deep into the 'ground' and the 'roots' that filled it with their growths.

By the time the door opened, a look upwards would not have served to spot anything but darkness.

Shinji didn't even want to know what the meaning of these structures was supposed to be, or just how deep underground they just went.

But a plate found on a gigantic gate, the only recognizable piece of technology in this dark alien world besides the elevator itself, insisted on informing him:

"TERMINAL DOGMA

MAIN LCL PLANT

HEAVEN'S DOOR"

When Misato swiped her security card through the corresponding slot and the machinery inside the gate audibly sprang to life, Shinji shuddered with the sudden feeling that he never should have come to this place. He felt like he was about to desecrate the adytum of a temple, and the numerous, subsequently opening little mechanisms didn't make it any better. What really made Shinji's blood run cold, though, was the sight that greeted him behind them, burning itself into his brain instantly and forever.

He could have gone mad on the spot.

Before his feet lay an endless expanse of red liquid, and from its approximate middle protruded a large, red, cross-shaped monolith.

And fixed to it with nails through it's palms and numerous tubes coming from behind was a creature that vaguely resembled a human torso.

It's pierced hands were almost exactly identical to a humans, but lacked fingernails; The white, shapeless skin hung in folds around the nail and drooped from the arms like cloth. Its thick, massive neck, to, was wrinkled, and above it was a thick, violet mask-like plate of which it was impossible to decide whether it was a bony body part like those he had repeatedly seen on the angels, or something that had been tacked on artificially to shield onlookers from the unmentionable horrors beneath. Either way, it appeared to have seen better days with less scratches and bumps, and its hard edges cut into the chalk-white, rubber-like flesh, demanding a tribute in slow trickles of orange blood.

In any case, the face was where any pretense of humanity ended, because the plate, otherwise featureless save for a triangular symbol, came equipped with seven openings behind which dark, lifeless, not further defined orifices could be glimpsed at, that were outed as eyes by the shape of the slits in the mask more than anything else.

Additionally, the being possessed a vestigial auricle, but otherwise lacked any features that would be expected on a human head.

Shinji wasn't sure whether it's chest should be classified as 'male' or 'female'; The presence of nipples or areola would sure have helped. Once he thought about it, the breast mounds did appear somewhat rounded, although he was easily distracted by the indefinitely more conspicuous scar running diagonally across the creature's body, garnished by numerous cross-shaped nails that looked tiny compared to the being itself.

From the chest downward, the white body was hopelessly disfigured. One could still vaguely recognize a narrowing following by a widening, in the sense of a feminine waist followed by a childbearing pelvis, but that aside, it was quite appropriate to say that the entity consisted of nothing but shapeless lumps of misshapen meat -

At first glance, one might have concluded that it was missing its legs, but a closer look revealed that it had more than enough of those – dozens, if not hundreds pairs of distinctly feminine lower limbs sprouted from the disfigured abdomen, from all angles and in all possible sizes and degrees of completeness, some even including associated buttocks.

Here and there, you could even see smaller legs growing _out of larger ones_ , from knees and ankles, thighs and calves, and all the inbetweens.

And the worst was, they were still _twitching_.

They were moving.

This thing... This being, whatever it was... despite all this, it was _still not dead_.

Not that it seemed particularly alive, either; A waterfall of an orange liquid, that could only be the creature's blood incessantly streamed down the cross into the endless bloody lake that stretched out before his and Misato's feet.

At first, Shinji thought that it must be coming from the exit wounds corresponding to its scar, but the flow didn't seem to have the right width for that. He couldn't see where exactly all that blood was coming from, but he couldn't shake off the impression that this thing was... _menstruating._

The whole enormous cave was certainly thoroughly drenched in an oppressive stench of old blood which didn't take too long to sweep into the hallway Misato and Shinji were standing in, forcing the latter to fight down an acute bout of sudden nausea.

"Is that... that... that can't be, can it? An... an Angel? Or ...an EVA?"

"It's neither." Misato explained. "This is probably the source of all life on this planet and, at the same time, the key to its obliteration. This is the Second Angel. Lillith."

"Lillith...?"

"Yes. It's a potential trigger for Third Impact. This is what the Angels have been trying to reach with their attacks, and the only thing that could possibly stand in their way is a being with the same powers... an EVA.

Because we need to protect Lillith, we fight with the EVAs. But none of us can use them. Only you can. So we have no choice but to trust both you and the EVAs with all of our futures... other than just sitting by and waiting for our doom to come, that is."

"And why does it have to be _me_?" Shinji demanded to know.

"Why was _I_ of all people picked out to carry that heavy load _all by myself?_ "

Misato, however, seemed to have been waiting for that particular question:

Without spending too much time thinking, she swiftly turned her head in his direction and gifted him with a warm smile.

"That's not something anyone decided. It's probably just your destiny.

But I brought you here because I wanted you to know that you're not the only one who is risking his life in these battles. We all are. Together.

You are _not_ alone."

Shinji's glance avoided hers.

It was not like he was really all that convinced on the inside, but Misato's words had certinly taking the edge off of his accusations.

He certainly didn't want to be responsible for the end of humanity.

"Alright. I'll pilot it. Just this once."

Misato affirmed her grasp on his hand anew, and he was, for the first time, all too ready to squeeze back and cling to the support she was offering him.

As long as she was with him... as long as she was holding his hand... he might just manage to convince himself that just maybe, he really wasn't on his own with all this.

At least for now.

* * *

"We've been standing here, like, forever!" Touji complained. "Are you really sure this is the right time? If we stay here much longer, someone _is_ gonna notice that we're not in the shelter..."

Touji, Hikari, Nagato and the rest of class A-2 were waiting on the roof of a bunker-like complex, and had been doing so for quite a while. Much to Hikari's displeasure, a few students, including Kensuke, who was no checking his wristwatch, had decided to sit down under the railway and let their feet dangle off the building.

"The time is definitely right. I got the info from my Dad's computer."

"In that case, why aren't they here yet?"

Touji's doubts, however – along with everyone else's – were soon silenced when the students started hearing machine noises.

An entire mountainside, along with all of it vegetation was in the process of moving to the side, revealing steel and concrete beneath.

"Unbelievable! The mountain is moving!" Touji shouted.

Kensuke had already jumped to his feet. "That's got to be the Evangelions!"

Both boys, much like the other students they had brought along, didn't cease their awe while the two titanic bio-machines were lifted to the surface.

Even Nagato and the usually serious class representative displayed a certain degree of excitation.

"So that's Ikari-kun's robot?" Hikari asked.

"Yep!" Kensuke confirmed. "That is, Ikari pilots the purple one. The orange one is probably Ayanami's."

And indeed, the usually strict class representative leaned past the handrails, raised her arms into the air and shouted: "You can do this! Do your best!"

Touji stared at her for a third of a second.

Looks like she wasn't _always_ bossy, at least not 24 hours a day... right now, she practially had a caring, nurturing quality about her.

"We trust in you!" Touji joined in, which prompted most of the class to break out in various kinds of cheering, with those with longer reaction times taking until Kensuke's "You're the greatest!"

Nagato was far too self-concious to start shouting at loud, but did hesitantly rise his arm and wave as the Evangelions stomped past them, sporting a bit of genuine enthusiasm or even a faint smile towards the end.

* * *

After their arrival at the provisional base, Shinji paradoxically found himself with a fair amount of time on his hands, despite the general urgency of the situation, since his part in the operation couldn't begin until the last preparations were taken care of.

So, he stuffed himself back into his school uniform, and tried walking around the perimeter for a bit to kill the time.

It didn't help much.

Seeing the numerous technicians work on all these unique, delicate and complicated arrangements did little to quell his unease, if not the exact opposite, for their sight didn't allow him to forget, not even for a second, that he would very soon be responsible for all of their lives, _and_ all of their efforts – whether their hard work would bear fruit was all up to him, and he couldn't help but feel stunned by the weight of that undeniable certainty.

It was just as hard as it was to assemble the electronics in this time frame, as it was easy to fill it with funereal brooding.

Somehere along the way Shinji decided to follow Misato's suggestion and try to catch ome sleep in some quieter corner of the bunkers, but it was futile, in part because of his growing anxiety regarding the battle, but also because he'd already spent most of the afternoon in bed, if not exactly by choice.

Still, when they did ultimately call him in for the final briefing, he felt no relief.

* * *

"Look over there, Shinji-kun! That's our new positron rifle I told you about. We're going to use this to break through the enemy's AT-field."

"But... it was never intended for real combat, right? How do we know it won't just explode?" the young EVA pilot asked, uncertainly.

"According to our calculations, it should be able to handle the strain, but I want to be honest with you." Dr. Akagi replied. "If this works out, it will be the first time in history that such amounts of energy have been channeled into a single device. Compared to this array, the Large Hadron Collider is a children's toy. No one can say if the conduits, the capacitor or the barrel will be p to the task before we fire the first shot."

Shinji swallowed.

This was already starting out _great_.

"I will now inform you of your roles in this operation!" Misato continued. "Shinji-kun?"

"Yes?"

"You will be the gunner in Unit One."

"Yes, Ma'am."

"Rei?"

"Yes?"

"You will be the defense in EVA 00."

"Understood."

"Although Unit One is not completely repaired yet, we need to do it this way because Shinji-kun has a higher synch ratio with Unit One. This operation calls for utmost precision." the scientist explained. "You also need to take into account that the rifle doesn't fire in a perfectly straight line. At this scale, it is going to be influenced by earth's rotation, magnetic and gravitational field. This is important because you absolutely must strike the angel's core in a single shot."

"But how do I tell where it is?"

"When the angel takes its attack stances, it reveals a peculiar structure in its center. We believe that it is the core. We have already inputted a target recognition program into your interface. All you have to do is to follow the on-screen prompt and pull the trigger when the indicators meet in the center. The computer will handle everything else.

But since the power supply system we're using is so complicated, your EVA won't have much leeway to move. You will need to remain in sniping position no matter what."

"So dodging is impossible..." Shinji realized, visibly disconcerted.

"Right."

"And what happens if I miss and the enemy shoots back?"

"Don't concern yourself with unnecessary thoughts. Just focus on destroying the target in one shot."

"So I have one shot...or it's all over..."

Then good night!

Shinji had never trusted his reflexes very much, let alone under such pressure.

In theory, awareness of the high stakes involved in this venture should have made him _more_ cautious and prudent, if anything, but in practice, this reality involved the limitations of the uncertainty principle.

This stress level alone was enough to make any outcome that didn't involve a massive failure of r _oyal_ proportions downright unattainable.

His salvation, temporary as it was, came in the shape of a high and fragile voice whose owner posed a question that should have been superfluous after the previous explanations:

"And my task... will be to protect EVA 01, correct?"

It was almost like she deliberately wanted to remind him that she still there.

That he wouldn't be alone.

But that's it. Only almost.

He could no longer even tell whether he was just trying to convince himself of just that, reading things into a simple request for confirmation to retroactively rationalize his decision to get himself back into this crazy flurry of harsh noise and dazzling light.

What reason would she have to be worried about him, after all?

"Yes." Misato stated, closing the open question and shutting down the tentative field lines tingling-warm tension it left in the air. "Get yourselves dressed."

* * *

The provisional base came complete with a provisional wardrobe, small, bunker-like, situated in a re-purposed vehicle, and – this being the issue – with only a green, half-translucent curtain to separate the boys' from the girls' lockers.

Shinji got it over with as swiftly as he could, and subsequently preoccupied himself with folding his uniform, and even his socks and underpants with meticulous care, mostly as an exercise to calm his threadbare nerves; At the touch of a button, the initially loose-fitting fabric of his plug suit tightened around his thoroughly unimpressive body.

He still didn't look particularly confident.

By contrast, Rei had simply undiscerning dumped her uniform in a artless pile on the ground.

Her dress was already sprawled before her feet, and her blouse followed shortly after.

Even her bra was carelessly thrown to the floor.

Next, she plucked her panties (pure white, like most of what she seemed to own in terms of underwear) off her buttocks and let them slide down her thin, but subtly curved, marble white legs and stepped out of it, leaving it, too, just where it had fallen.

"We might-" only when he attempted to strike up a conversation did he realize that he was staring _yet again_ and shamefully averted his eyes even though she probbly wouldn't notice from behind the curtain.

Unobserved, Rei pulled the plug suit's rubbery fabric over her flawless body.

"We might both be dead by tomorrow morning..." Shinji speculated, dejected. He still didn't have the slightest bit of faith in the possibility that he might actually succeed, so he was all the more shocked by the clear, firm answer he received: **"No."**

"You won't die." Rei announced, determined. The plug suit tightened around her body and shrank her silhouette behind the curtain to a very distinctive shape.

"Because I will protect you."

The sound of her steps, much like her silhouette, disappeared in the distance behind the green curtain, until the opening mechanism of an automatic door could be heard.

Once it closed behind her, Shinji was left in silence, contemplating whether he was even _worth_ protecting.

He didn't think so.

* * *

"These messages were left at our public affairs bureau. They're for you."

Surprised, and somehow still disbelieving, Shinji visually inspected the small audio device, hesitating to take it out of Misato's hands.

It probably had to be something important if Misato had gone through the trouble to cut him off on his way to the boarding platforms, even though he couldn't imagine who could possibly have left this for him.

Warily, he pressed down on the "play" button.

" _It's me, Suzuhara. Ikari... no, I should probably be calling you by your first name by now._ Shinji. _We trust in you!"_

" _This is... Mitsurugi. I'm certain that you... will be victorious, Ikari-san."_

" _Hi, this is Aida! Ikari, show 'em what you're made of!"_

* * *

With the moment of truth approaching, the isles of Japan went dark.

One light after another turned itself off, one window after the other, city after city; Even a certain penguin observed in astonishment how the darkness spread beyond his familiar living room window, until only the milky way remained as the last source of light.

The various underground shelters were no exception here, millions of people found themselves sitting in the darkness with questioning looks, waiting for the state of emergency to be lifted, including Touji and Kensuke.

They had already done what little was within their might, everything else was up to Shinji and Rei.

They could only hope that their contribution had been enough to make a difference.

* * *

After everything was said and done, Shinji and Rei found themselves on their boarding platforms next to their respective EVAs, sitting far up in the clouds above the brightly glowing structures of the provisional base, two lonely silhouettes beneath the starry canopy.

While Shinji was sitting cross-legged, Rei had all her limbs pulled close to her body.

He found the presence of the huge gap between them regrettable, but he didn't know what he would have done differently if it hadn't been there.

In the end, the precipice between them wasn't purely physical in nature.

Lost in thought, Shinji once again found himself silently observing his comrade from the distance, this girl that hadn't ceased to mesmerize him for the past few weeks.

For most of this time, he'd had this impression of her as a fragile being he wished to protect, but now, _she_ wound up being the one pledging to protect _him_.

Not that this should be particularly surprising: Despite her delicate, sickly-looking exterior, this girl had already shown him what she was made of back when they first met. Fear seemed unknown to her, and many of the things she had been willing to do in the short time they knew each other left little doubt of her boundless inner strength and determination.

In the last two days, Shinji had learned so many new things about her, and at the same time, he was well ware that he still knew nothing at all, but there were at least two things he was perfectly certain of:

That this silent, solitary girl was worthy of all the respect and admiration he could possibly produce from his tainted dishonest heart, and that he wished from the depths of his soul to be _**like her**_ , that he might one day, in a distant, faraway future measure up to her strength and determination, her ability to simply go and carry out what he knew had to be done even if it would be less than pleasant, but also her capacity for loyalty and devotion, hat he might be able to give of himself, maybe not for a big abstract cause, but at least for an important person, and to her way of neither resenting nor judging when he could only produce a deficient imitation of apathy.

She was the first person who ever showed him any degree of understanding without demanding anything in return, and yet, she had also managed to gift a thoroughly useless person like him with the feeling of being _needed_ for once in his life, that he might be capable of doing something, _anything_ to genuinely benefit other people.

For these two things alone, she would always hold a special place in his heart, even if none of this had been her intention... and she would most likely never know.

There was still a large, large distance separating them.

Still... If he should fail now, if he should bring about the end of the world, he was grateful to have seen her one last time.

But there was one more thing Shinji wanted to know before they would go into battle side by side: "Say, Ayanami... why are _you_ an EVA pilot?"

She paused to think first, almost as if she had never considered this question before, at least not in this particular form.

When she _did,_ however, present an answer at last, there was not a speck o doubt in her voice:

"...because of my bonds."

"...bonds?"

"Yes. It's my bond."

"...with my father?"

"...with everyone."

"You are very strong, Ayanami..." Shinji admitted in a tone between serious admiration and open shame about his own inadequacies. But Rei herself didn't see it as anything to be proud of: "I'm just doing what I'm here for. I have nothing else."

Shinji reacted with deep perturbation.

Did he say something to upset her again, or- he didn't know. He had no idea what exactly she was specifically referring to, but he knew that just hearing her say that filled his chest with a heavy lump of bitter sadness.

'I have nothing else'... that sounded far too much like his own feelings...

He didn't _want_ her to feel something like this, she shouldn't _have_ to, he couldn't see how a downright awe-inspiring person like her could possibly _deserve_ to feel the way he did all too often. But what could he possibly say? A complete outsider like him... If he could, he would have preferred to grab her hand and never let go of it (at the very least, that had been somewhat helpful when Misato did it with him), but that was impossible.

Even if she had been within his reach, he would never dare to approach her.

Just what could someone like him ever really do for her?

"It is time. We must depart." Rei declared before he even found the time to ponder this question. She hadn't finished speaking when she rose to her feet and straightened herself up, covering part of the lunar disk like a white, impregnable tower sparkling in the moonlight, reminding him once again of why he ever so often felt so tiny and insignificant before her.

The pale moonshine turned out to be the perfect lighting for her, it seemed like it could make all of her essence visible with one glance.

Shinji couldn't help but to pause his thoughts just to marvel at her - This image of Rei in the moonlight was more beautiful than any sight he had ever witnessed in his life so far.

This was obviously not the first time he had seen her with fairly revealing clothing (or none at all), but most of this time had been spent contemplating various oddities of her behavior and relations, or panicking because of her unclothed state, so he never really paused to really notice that while she was many other things, she was also _beautiful._

Her slim legs, which some might have found lacking in substance, but, in Shinji's opinion, radiated a certain elegance; Her stance, upright and determined, ready to succeed in her objective at any cost, her breast, slightly below average in size, but firm and taut, her butt, small yet feminine, still retaining a rounded, childlike quality, her supple hips every bit as curved as they should be... utmost perfection, but also, a beauty of a potentially very ephemeral sort -

Holding his father's old glasses, she preceded her departure with one last "Farewell", immediately taking Shinji back to her earlier answers, and the thought and associations those provoked just exasperate his feeling of being close to falling apart spontaneously, speechless and unheard within his self-inflicted halo of silent darkness, holding back unshared words that strove to burst out in fireworks, and all the more unable to keep her from saying any more of these horrible, sad things or the corresponding thoughts that gave rise to them, not when he couldn't even force his own thoughts to make sense, or stay on the trails he had intended for them...

And just like this, with a brief session of thinking, he had found a wealth of new reasons to hate himself, as much as some critics might argue that a bunch of them were just cheap rehashes of the same old, of which there is seldom anything new under the sun.

He must not fail.

For her sake, as well.

* * *

Ultimately, the steady trickle of seconds, cruel in both its steady advance and sudden arrival, unavoidably reached the dreadful, viscous moment when the battle was a few effusive instants away from demanding its due respect as the undeniable, tangible reality of the present moment, and Shinji was already long since trapped inside the entry plug, deep within the EVA's flesh, away from all exits and boarding platforms.

Struggling to harness this last certain opportunity to gather his thoughts and concentrate, he had leaned backwards until he almost vanished into his chair, closing his eyes in a forced attempt to calm himself down.

He mustn't miss.

He mustn't run away.

It was all up to him now.

He had only one shot, and it had to be dead on target.

And the moment when he would have to do this was right now, as announced by a high-pitched acoustic signal.

"Shinji-kun... I know how much effort it took you to even agree to participate in this. For that alone, I am grateful."

He absorbed each of her words like drops of nectar and ambrosia, hoping that this humble stockpile would be sufficient to appease his fear, perhaps not completely, but just long enough.

"Operation Yashima begins now!" He then heard her order.

In that same instant, the bunker was bristling from all the typing and coordinating – Dr. Akagi, Hyuuga, Ibuki, Aoba, the elder Mitsurugi, and many other technicians, like the tree young women that shared the bunker with them, one with straight, straight cut chin-length dark hair, another with a more natural, fluffy bob, and the last with a somewhat androgynous figure and her hair strictly tied back into a ponytail, they all had their hands full with work.

Even commander Ikari and Fuyutsuki, who had stayed behind at headquarters and occupying their usual spots on the unusually vacant command bridge, were solemnly observing the events on the main screen.

Practically no time after the various technicians had finished its assembly, the components of the energy supply systems were being activated one after an another – So far, everything seemed to be going alright or at least staying inside the expected parameters, including the countdown that had sprung into existence just one undefined time span ago, seeping into his consciousness only when it was already in progress.

Shinji was audibly inhaling and exhaling, growing more nervous by the second.

He had to strike it down in one single shot... or it was all over.

The end of the world was imminent ….and only he could stop it...

The next phase of the plan was set into motion – continuous fire from automatic turrets, intended to lure the enemy into the offensive, make it reveal its core – and distract it, if such a thing was possible.

As expected, the simple rockets were hardly any challenge for the angel; Its continuous flow of transformations eagerly performed the crassest order of sacrileges against common sense and euclidean geometry.

Meanwhile, the lively exchange of hermetic techno-babble all over the provisional base, impenetrable as it may have been to Shinji, had resulted in most of the energy being moved exactly where they wanted it; the loading sequence for the particle gun was beginning, the sight devices being deployed, one the size of a car for EVA 01, and a smaller pendant inside Shinji's entry plug.

Discouraged, Shinji observed the wild dance of the on-screen indicators and the virtually invincible Angel beyond.

This whole undertaking had gotten into motion much faster than he could even begin to properly comprehend the vast magnitude of implications connected to this surreal spectacle, a level of importance and weight he couldn't even properly grasp because his imagination was insufficient to give it form.

"...I wish I had Ayanami's determination... I don't even have the slightest bit of faith that I can actually do this. What am I even doing here, and why is it me doing it? _Protecting humanity?!_ What does that even mean...?"

The time to figure out the answer was a luxury he didn't have. All the energy produced by every single power plant in this country, all the efforts of every single person who had ever worked on this... it all converged on his shoulders and pressed the breath out of his chest.

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"FIRE!"Misato ordered.

Simultaneously, both triangular indicators in the interface united in the shape of a star.

" _Massive energy surge inside the target!"_

Shinji pulled the trigger.

The beam sped past the land like an avalanche of light, melting a few unfavorably placed pylons and frameworks straight into oblivion.

But the angel was far from oblivious about the concentration of energy that had been swelling in the distance, and swiftly formed back to its hourglass-like configuration, dispatching another jet of radiant light.

Upon contact, both beams circled each other until they were entwined to a single connection of pure light, but that state didn't persist for too long, since the particles that made up the beams influenced each other with their charges and the electromagnetic fields they created – The angel's beam barely missed the refuge of humanity and crashed into a nearby mountain, blowing a gigantic pillar of light into the sky and raining thick sprinkles of lava upon the landscape.

The beam from Shinji's weapon was a bit luckier: It broke through the angel's AT-field, all according to the calculations, burning a swatch of destruction through its innermost – And at once, Shinji was made to realize that he was fighting flesh and blood, not some mineral automaton – Unlike its predecessors, its hard, strictly geometric structure and strictly methodical behavior like its indiscriminate attacks and slow, but steady drilling could easily be misconstrued into a distinctly inorganic, even mechanical impression, but now, after he had struck the creature at its center, there could be no doubt, for it reacted very much like any average animal would react to a deep injury – it _screamed._

A blood-curdling, screeching noise somewhere between chalk starching along a whiteboard and a wailing human impact echoed through the night, accompanied by an apparently involuntary transformation into a mass of asymmetric, chaotic spikes that broke out from the angel's outline in a matter of seconds, burnt-out black, only retaining their characteristic blue color in their center, almost like the angel was in too much pain to bother bringing it along.

It was a scream that could not only be heard, but also very much _felt,_ throwing the air into violent vibrations that reverberated in every fiber of those unfortunate enough to witness it firsthand.

The angel was ostensibly _wounded_.

But was it a mortal wound?

The unearthly messenger, a being that was never intended to ever touch the ground, could no longer maintain its levitation and sank; From the middle that had been the target of Shinji's positron beam, blood spurted forth like a geysir, a whole supernova rushed out o the angel's body, spraying entire city districts full of crimson.

"Did we just win?" Misato asked.

Every pair of eyes and every flock of sensors, be it in the provisional bunker or central command, immediately darted to the angel's physical wound, which in the strictest, most concrete sense consisted of a cylindrical entrance canal and the bloody, shattered crystalline flesh around it.

Those cracks looked pretty much irreparable – but they weren't.

With shocked, wide open eyes, the NERV employees inside the bunker watched as the supposed shard arrangeds themselves back into one plane and connected.

Even the gaping hole in-between closed up completely without even leaving the slightest blemish, and beneath, the core: red, round, and unscathed – Shinji had barely grazed it.

Someone with a stronger desire or capacity to make the world conform to their model might have explained this all away with bad luck or a minuscule error in their timing, but Shinji could not deny the first thing his instincts told him, simply because he did not have the time or the strength to stuff that impression away –

The lingering certainty that his opponent had _seen_ him,

that demanded him to acknowledge the fellow mind that was peering at him from beyond the mountains – It was apparent that the angel's attack was never meant to hit them in the first place... instead, its primary purpose must have been to divert NERV's particle beam, and be it ever so slightly.

Not only had the angel seen their attack coming despite the steady bombardment to distract it and their position far outside its firing perimeter, it had been able to anticipate that its AT-field alone wouldn't be enough to shield it from the beam, and initiated precursory actions to protect itself...

This thing was _highly intelligent,_ and Shinji's bungled attack had just told it where it needed to aim if it wanted to get rid of all its problems really quick.

He _knew_ he would screw this up.

He had known all along.

The angel didn't waste a single second – at first, it folded itself back into its preferred, octahedral form to gather its strength...and then, it got ready for the _coup de grâce_ , and twisted upon itself to produce a gigantic, star-like shape whose size needed to be multiplied through several iterations of the same motions.

It was as if a new sun had been lit in the very center of the lightless night; The angel had no intention of leaving anything half-finished, and thus chose the simplest, most direct path between itself and its enemy: A straight line.

The medium sized mountain unlucky enough to be situated right on that line melted in seconds, fleeing in a wave of fervid lava, away from the sheer boundless energy striving to evaporate it.

The earth beneath the provisional base shook as the components in bedrock beneath them changed into substances with other physio-chemical properties in a cascade of reactions fueled by the immense heat; Where the light directly touched the ground, the stones simply disintegrated, sending the more tenacious chunks flying across the landscape, as if banished by a decree of the heavens. Tanks flew through the air, various facilities sunk into the molten ground, materials shattered from the thermic shocks alone, bunker windows broke, welcoming certain death along with the shards.

If the entire provisional base didn't instantly evaporate along with the several hundred NERV employees in it, then only because it was situated at the back of the mountain – The angel had been aiming for the summit, precisely targeting the source of the positron beam whose deadly powers it had only barely escaped.

Up there, the world as we knew it was about to disintegrate and dissolve, leaving behind puddles of liquid metal; The atmosphere itself was red, burnt and ionized, the arrangement of the laws and forces suitable for humans had broken down to the point that small rocks spontaneously began to float freely into what was left of the air.

Further down, on the side of the mountain that was turned away from the angel, known physics were still sufficiently intact to allow for the existence of small bunkers – and the one containing Misato, Dr. Akagi and their underlings had miraculously been among the lucky ones to remain in one piece.

Sure, most people inside of it had been thrown off their feet, the lighting wasn't working, the alarm systems didn't cease their beeping and it would probably take a while until the patch of ground just outside the entrance had cooled enough for a human being to survive leaving its confines, but they were here, they were still alive.

Although Misato had been standing freely between the consoles and therefore keenly felt the brunt of the tremors, she forced herself off the ground immediately.

"...the... energy supply system?" she asked, not wasting a second.

"It's still usable. We're already recharging!" Hyuuga immediately reported – having held on to his console, he was still left in his chair.

"...and what about the positron canon?"

"Still operational, barrel cooling already in progress... but no one knows whether it can withstand a second shot..."

That was enough.

It _had_ to be enough.

"Don't bother with the verification! We've got no choice, we _have_ to try again..." Misato concluded.

"Shinji-kun, are you alright? You need to get Unit One back into sniping position!"

But all that could be heard over the com line was uncontrolled sobbing.

Where you would once have found elaborate structures of metal and concrete forming a trench for the EVA and a socket for the particle gun, there were only scorched earth and the red glow of molten rock. It was true, the gun itself was still intact, but it was just about the only thing around here that could be described as such, probably owing to its immediate proximity to Unit One and its AT-field on the immediate moment of contact – not that it provided more than a subtle mitigation.

EVA 01 itself had been knocked back a few hundred meters by the force of the strike, which was probably what had saved the life of its pilot – had they been exposed to the beam for the full duration of its shot, both he, EVA 01 and the positron rifle would have melted into unrecognizable puddles by now.

But even so, the outer layers of EVA 01's armor had not escaped without their partially molten patches, and while the god-machine had withstood both the attack's kinetic energy as well as the heat of the beam itself, Shinji had felt all of these things all too keenly, as if the slightly scorched surface of the still-steaming cyborg were his own skin.

He had missed his target...

He failed, as he knew he would, and-

-the terrible, terrible pain...

Everything he had feared had taken place before his very eyes, before _all_ of his senses, all roads leading to his brain.

Incapable of forming even the tiniest clear thought, he sat there, his legs brought as close to his body as the fixtures of the entry plug would let him, his arms clasped around his body, helplessly sobbing in the dark as the angel's bright, white radiance burned in every square centimeter of his skin.

Tears of desperation gathered in the corners of his eyes.

In the end, all pretty words of this world didn't make a difference; Everything still went exactly like it did the last time... So many people had done their best, Misato, Dr. Akagi... everyone...

They all had trusted in him, and he had still messed up his one shot.

How could he ever expect this to turn out any way other than _this?_

 _This,_ all over again...

Quite possible that Misato and the others would use their last breaths to curse him, and soon after, the world would be left in ruins, every single person on this planet would die and would all be his fault.

And the worst was that while absolutely nothing could be done to stop it (Misato was telling him to try again, but they both already knew that it would never work – even if their equipment didn't blow up on him, he couldn't see ho the outcome would be any different), he would be left with a good few minutes to ponder his own misery and the scope of consequence of that one missed shot: He would have to live until he died, right where he started, paralyzed by fear and dread, painfully aware of his own helplessness.

All he could do was sob – even though he knew full well that there was no one to hear his cries and come for him, no one who would even _consider_ getting him out of he-

"The pilot of Unit One is hereby relieved of duty. The pilot of Unit Zero will take his place."

Shinji's eyes, which until now had been tightly shut, were suddenly wide open, so far it seemed more like an abrupt switching of states than a process that required time.

That voice... He would have picked out this deep, matter-of-fact-ly voice among thousands, and yet, he would have expected to hear any of these thousand unknown voices before vaguely hoping for this familiar one.

It had come a long distance, reaching the boy's soul after a lengthy journey through his eardrums and those distinctly mammalian auditory bones, following a path alongside the slopes of the mountains, up from the depths of the earth – all the way from the lips of his father.

"Ikari!" the subcommander called, clearly alarmed, spinning around sharply to face his superior.

Fuyutsuki didn't have to tell him just how unfavorable the odds for a successful pilot switch were at this time, now, with the enemy preparing to finish them off at any moment, and its probe not too far above their heads, or how unlikely they were to win this battle with only one EVA and no one left to carry the defense shield.

Even still, Ikari was adamant: "We have no choice. The current pilot is incapable of carrying out the task."

That just couldn't be changed – The last few battles had been decided through what outwardly resembled random factors, but to him and other initiates was recognizable as the stern hand of predetermination; but that was as far as they could go with the current state of affairs: Barely fulfilling the tally. These were the limits of the Third Child's capacity.

Regardless, he never had any real alternative to using this unreliable, frightened boy - because of the great plan, because there were no other weapons available, because any other course of action would be even more strategically unsound. From the beginning, that child had been a contingency plan, the least efficient option except anything else currently at his disposal – that is, until now. Ikari Gendo had always been a rather pragmatic person with a straight, firm gaze at the big picture, at organizations as a whole – and as such, he had been able to accept the fact that he had (or saw?) no choice but to sot back as the child that had been entrusted to him by the woman he lobes screamed his lungs out.

But...

He couldn't do this again, not right afterward.

"Please reconsider!"

The commander's only ostensible outward reaction to seeing a he window with the face of the operations division leader open up on the main screen was a quiet, questioning sound.

"He hasn't run away yet! Don't you think we should leave it to him to decide whether he wants to continue or not? Please, have some faith in your own son.

I _trust_ in the pilot of Unit One."

Ikari didn't expect his subordinate to speak with such complete conviction;

Leaving the boy in her care had not been a mistake.

This whole situation stirred vague, long-buried recollections of days long gone.

Was it true? Had he underestimated his son?

It was quite possible. He had already failed this child in so many other ways...

...and that woman seemed so very sure of her cause.

"Alright. Proceed at your own discretion."

"Thank you very much, Sir!"

Shinji could hardly believe what he had just witnessed.

Misato... the others... even his father...

They really believed he could do this!

 _He_ of all people.

They... they really believed in him.

They trusted him!

Were he not in this dire situation, and still feeling pain, he could have cried just from this alone.

He... was not alone.

He had _never_ been alone out here.

Misato... Dr. Akagi... All the Technicians... His friends and classmates, too. All of them trusted him! They had all done what they could – even if that was little more than to cheer him on – so that his burden would be lessened, so that he'd only have to press a button to finish this.

And they... they actually _believed_ he could.

Even now, Shinji couldn't believe his own blindness, he had been distracted by his own fear, his own pain, and even now, he found himself confronted with the ugly truth about the useless coward that stared back at him from the mirror every single morning:

He still didn't believe he had any chance of succeeding and _not_ wasting everyone's efforts... but he owed it to Misato, Ayanami and the others to at least try.

He had to show them all that he didn't want to leave _them_ alone either, that he at least _wanted_ to do his part as well, even if he couldn't promise them anything, even if all was already lost. At the very least, he wanted to show them that he did appreciate their faith and effort, so that... so that they might hate him a little bit less when everything inevitably went south.

So that he might hate _himself_ a little bit less.

He had to try this, he _had_ to...!

Shinji knew that he would never forgive himself if he remained frozen in terror _now,_ now that his father was watching him, even beginning to trust him with such an important task, now that he was, for the first time since he could remember, forming real expectations for him, like... a proper father.

Scratching together every tiny quantum of courage and determination that he had ever possessed in any crevice of his being, Shinji set himself into motion, still very much in pain, panting loudly and filled with dread, and clumsily reached forward with a hand that was separated from the fabric of the plugsuit by a thin layer of sweat, until he finally rasped the control yoke and held on to it like it was his own wretched life.

He rose from the back of his seat, his tears of joy and despair still ticking to the corners of his eyes, pulling himself forward with his arms because the rest of him hadn't finished being frozen up in fear.

All the people that he had once lightly accused of not believing he could even accomplish what they were asking them, all those in front of whom he had openly admitted that he didn't know where to get the strength to fight this war...

In the end, they very words, of all things, ended up being what he derived that streght from, draining syllable after syllable like some desperate mosquito.

" _Shinji. We trust in you!"_

With his teeth gritted so hard it hurt, he clawed the EVAs hands into the closest bits of bedrock that still seemed halfway solid, using it to pull the still steaming violet titan out of the half-molten pit it had been stuck in, barely managing to catch himself so he wouldn't collapse onto the ground all over again.

" _Hi, this is Aida! Ikari, show 'em what you're made of!"_

Groaning with exertion, he forced the singed bio-machine to crawl across the pulp that once constituted the ground, straight through all of the destruction left by the angel's last attack, dragging this aching body that wasn't his own with sheer force of will.

" _I_ trust _in the pilot of Unit One."_

Without anything he could have used as an improvised crutch, he brought the Evangelion back onto its feet in defiance of everything his senses were currently trying to tell him, and picked up the positron canon that was enormous even when compared to the Evangelion.

Evangelion Unit 01... was in position.

"Shinji-kun?" At the time Misato's voice reached him, it was still brimming with the same confidence.

"The entire energy output of the japanese isles... all our hopes and dreams... and the future of humanity and every other living thing on the face of this planet... are now in your hands.

Good luck."

"Understood." Shinji affirmed, pulling on his control levers one last time to fully place the particle gun in its final firing position.

They told him that he would have to aim the gun manually this time, but his level of uncertainty and stress was such that this didn't even feature as a substantial increase – No time for that: The provisional base had just received reports that the angel's drill had breached the roof of the geofront.

All of NERV HQ must be shaking-

and so were Shinji's hands.

It was all or nothing now. After half a second of shaky attempts, he managed to aim the positron cannon at the angel.

The few seconds between the present and the moment the particle gun would be ready to use felt like an eternity – he wanted to be able to shoot already so he could end this fast-

"We're detecting another energy surge inside the target!"

"Damn it!"

_Oh no._

Please no, please, please no, please not now... not now, when he was finallly-

Shinji didn't even get the time to properly greet the incoming swelling of radiance with an appropriately contorted expression of horror before it broke loose from the angel's star shaped body, melting its way through rock and stone... but for some reason, not through the armor of EVA 01.

The only thing that reached Shinji was the blinding lights, but not the beam of high-energetic particles that endowed it its deathly power.

Struggling against that remained component alone, Shinji forced himself to open his eyes at least a little – and, in defiance to the contrary instinct, widened them to the brink when he realized just what had happened.

Instead of hitting their mark, the rays of deadly subatomic projectiles scattered all around him, numerous streams of incandescence simply passed him by, fanning out like the delta of a river without even grazing him, because at their nexus, armed with an ridiculously large, spaceship-shaped shied and garish orange armor, was EVA 00.

And while the pilot of the metal-coated meat colossus would probably always see it as the simple fulfilling of her duty, Shinji couldn't help but see it as it was: She had just saved his life, and with the thunder of divine retribution, she held back anything that could have stained the absolute clarity of an inevitable conclusion: He was _not_ alone, not even on the battlefield.

"AYANAMI!"

Now she had done it. If he hadn't been before, _now_ he was certain that his admiration for this girl would never cease.

There she was, boldly standing in the way of a fiery avalanche that could swallow them both at any given moment, protecting him with only a shield that was already breaking apart, and all this because of the obligation she felt towards each and every person she had crossed paths which until this day.

She had completely surrendered herself to the mercy of his ability to to this storm of fire; Hers was also one of the many lives that were currently depending on him.

The time had finally come; The time for him to add his own contribution to the great work, so that everyone else's would not go to waste.

He mustn't disappoint them, not now, when he had finally seen how they were really willing to support him.

He mustn't disappoint himself, now that he finally got the opportunity he had been waiting for... a n opportunity to prove himself to Ayanami, a chance to _protect_ her... and not just her, but all of this small world, this little... _home_ he had built for himself since the time of his arrival. He wanted to protect them with all of his strength, however small it might be.

Impatient, he worked at adjusting the cannon's aim.

"C'mon... C'mon..."

His initially pleading voice gradually transforming into a commanding tone.

"C'mon... C'mon!"

" _Come on!"_

Once the finder sight indicators clicked into place, Shinji didn't waste a second a pulled the trigger.

The positron beam tore through the enemy's ray of devastation, drew rights of electrified water around it as it passed over the sea, and finally pieced the angel straight in the middle, met with the sound of breaking glass.

The messenger still tried to save himself by folding back into his preferred, diamond-like shape so he might expel the fire, but it was no use.

The shot had gone all the way through, and quickly revealed why the angel was forced to separate its crystalline flesh from its core to fire its weapon – The finer structures that composed the angel's body might not be what we might call "molecules" or "atoms", but their particles were still liable to change their energetic states and dissolved their bonds if excess energy was available, so whatever it was reacted with itself and the surrounding atmosphere, and the resulting gaseous chemicals rushed out of the molten exit wound as flames.

Ramiel screamed, a sharp, grating shriek more grating than the last, the asymmetric spikes of the form accompanying it much wilder and larger – and then, he fell silent forever.

Multiple craters broke into the angel's surface, ugly, misshapen indentations, and in the walls of the largest one – multiple reflections of the core.

No matter what unearthly material the crimson sphere had been composed of, nothing living could withstand the direct contact with such extreme amounts of energy – there was a delay, but in the end, it simply burst, spraying the inner part of the spikes that had still remained blue with the bright red of its liquefied remains.

The second shot... had been lethal.

The probe that had caused them so many problems simply disintegrated just a little more than ten meters above the tip of the pyramid, baptizing NERV headquarters in a waterfall of blood.

The spikes, too, began to decay, first slowly and then at all once, starting with quickly multiplying rivulets of blood raining out of each of them, spraying out drops of the material with a startling gentleness, until finally, the hollowed out outline of the angel collapsed in a matter of seconds, smearing a streak of rainbow across the night sky as the last hollow remains refracted the moonlight as they were broken down into their components – the flying fortress had fallen.

But Shinji had no time to indulge this spectacle, because towards the end, Ayanami Rei, this fascinated, inexplicable, determined girl, had been protecting him with the bare body of her Evangelion after the last remainders of the shield had long since melted out of her hands, blocking the path of the angel's attack towards the bitter end.

Now that the task was accomplished, EVA 00 crashed to the ground like a falling rock, its only motions mindless convulsions of pain, much of its brown flesh exposed after its many constricting layers of metallic armor had been thoroughly seared or molten away, and the molten cinders that remained of the earth beneath them after all of these high-energy reactions were all too glad to swallow the one-eyed giant as compensation, even more, the helpless EVA, parts of which were still glowing white-hot, was eagerly devoured by the hungry battlefield like a small child in a pit of quicksand.

Immediately, Shinji carelessly threw the positron cannon aside, and raced to pull at least half of the smoking Evangelion onto the halfway solid patch of rock he was standing on.

Next, he had to get her out of there as fast as possible – everything else could be explained later.

Incapable of thinking up anything better, he just drew his prog knife and used it to hack at the molten hatch until he had cut it free and revealed the EVA's mechanized spine, just where the entry plug was supposed to go in.

Thankfully, the part of the machinery that was supposed to eject the entry plug and expulse the overheated LCL was still functional, sparing Shinji from having to further dissect the EVA and risk possibly harming its pilot in the process.

As soon as EVA 00's entry plug, the outside of which was partially molten and hot enough to inflict the same on EVA 01's hand, was safely set down on the ground, Shinji exited his own EVA, and leapt down from heights he would have been terrified of in any other context, from the plug to the sitting EVA's shoulder, down its arm and finally all the way to the ground, all without even really thinking about it –

At this point, his mind was concerned with one one thing, or rather, only one person.

Ayanami Rei.

For so long, he had been observing her and the peculiar world she lived in from the distance, for so long he had tried to get closer to her, all the while feeling like he was silently falling to pieces...

Now, he would finally be able to do something for her.

In haste, he turned the half-molten opening mechanism of the overheated emergency hatch, and it hurt like hell, just like it did when he used his Evangelion's hands to put the plug down in the first place, but he couldn't care less.

All he wanted to know was that she was alright.

The fight against the emergency hard was hard, but did bear fruit, and soon as it was out of the way, Shinji leaned into the darkness of the entry plug, where he found Rei's unmoving bone-white form lying in her control chair in the faint, silvery twilight of the moon.

"Ayanami! Ayanami!" he shouted into the murky gloom of the plug interior, increasingly anxious. "Are you alright? Please say something! AYANAMI!"

He couldn't make out any sort of reaction. What if she...!

No. She was moving.

The was a stirring in her thin fingers that had refused to let go of his father's glasses until the very end.

She was alive.

The rest of her sprang into motion as well; She weakly turned her head in his direction and opened her eyes.

He was the first thing she saw.

Shinji was completely overcome with emotion.

When he stepped into her entry plug, he could distinctly feel the tears of pure bliss accumulating ducts of limited, all the heat and salty sparkliness forcing itself out so vehemently it was almost painful.

She was alive.

In spite of all this...

Oh, by all gods and all celestial bodies, she was alive!

He was so hopelessly overwhelmed with feeling that he couldn't piece together anything to say in a situation like this, leaving him with no options other than to let these true, unprocessed feelings pour out as they were.

"Please... don't say any more horrible things like 'I have nothing else'..." he began.

Rei just looked at him with big eyes. "...and always this 'Farewell', as if we'd never meet again... That always makes me so sad..."

Shinji lovered his gaze, unable to get his sobbing under control.

As for Rei, she looked slightly confused, as if she genuinely didn't know what to do or say next. She, too, seemed a little bit overwhelmed.

Carefully, she moved herself into an upright sitting position without ever taking her eyes off of Shinji.

Rei didn't think she fully understood what was happening, or where this strong reaction on his part was coming from, but he did seem really upset again, as se had been before, and she felt a discomfort at the sight.

"Why are you crying?"

He didn't seem to be able to answer.

Had she done something wrong?

Dejected, Rei averted her eyes.

"I'm sorry. I don't know how to express myself in situations like this..."

Shinji looked up to her.

"How about a smile?"

Only now did she notice.

And it shocked her that she noticed only now.

The way he had leaned forward through the hatch, the devoted look in his midnight blue eyes, even that smile of deepest relief...

_Just like the commander._

He had come here... because of _her_. To save her, to make sure she was alright, she alone, regardless of how many clones were floating around in some tanks in NERV's underground complexes... of course, the Third Child knew nothing of this, but that didn't change that the only ostensible reason for his tears was the simple fact that she was... not damaged, and that he was looking at her in a way that only one person had ever looked at her before... as if she were something _precious._

Just like the commander... and yet, _not_ like him.

The elder Ikari had created her and given her a purpose, but his son didn't have any _reason_ to worry about her, nor did he derive any benefit from her remaining intact...

Rei was almost a little shocked about this.

She felt reminded of the day he had taken her into his arms, so firm yet dilligent, and not cold at all, so very, very different from the metal floor of the umbilical bridge, handling her with great care, like her torn, malfunctioning body was something of unspeakable value.

At the moment, she had been far too preoccupied with the pain that filled her body and the possible task at hand to bother with less relevant sensations, but when she looked back, she hadn't been able to think of a reason back then, either...

And maybe that was why she had spent the empty moments of her days unwaveringly gazing at his back, from the very next moment she was wheeled past him in the sickbay hallway up to when she had watched him at the depart to his first confrontation with the sixth angel from the walkway near the walls of the launchpad room. Maybe that was why she had volunteered to alert hm of the penultimate angel's attack, or why she had waited in front of his sickroom instead of just making her way there once he was reported to have regained consciousness – but she hadn't had any other tasks scheduled for his time, so she couldn't be sure.

What she _was_ already sure of, however, was that this had to be a kind of bond she was not yet familiar with, one that would unavoidably shape them both however subtly and soon be another voice in the choir of her reasons for being where she was, already more so than others by simple virtue of having extended her existence or at very least spared her further downtime.

He had worried for her, and that... touched her.

So she showed it to him.

The beautiful, warm smile she reserved for a very select group of melancholy men with midnight blue eyes that had saved her life, and for whom she would be willing to give her own at any time, without a moment's hesitation.

Shinji could barely believe that she was actually smiling, at him, no less, and _what_ a smile it was!

Thin and tentative, as if she wasn't quite sure if she was doing it right, but the expression in her eyes was proof that it genuine and heartfelt as anything could ever be.

It tinted his cheeks with the slightest glow of pink, and left him no choice but to return it tenderly. He offered his hand and the discolored patches in the rubber of his plug suit that had been left by the heat on his palm, and a bit hesitant and first but somehow still very deliberate, she offered hers in return.

As they sat in the darkness of entry plug, holding hands amidst the molten landscape, half sitting in a pool of LCL with the silvery gleam of the midnight moon high above even the towering figures of their Evangelions, Shinji knew in spite of all the strenuous ordeals he had been forced to endure today, this day would always remain a very important and even fond memory for him, one that could never be replaced.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) It seems there has been an unexpected rush of followers since I posted the last chapter. Thanks, everyone. *blushes sheepishly*
> 
> (2) Sorry, new computer, new keyboard, I seem to need to press these new keys a bit harder. So I'd like to apologize for any random missing letters that the spell checker didn't find.
> 
> (3) Yes, that title is shamelessly stolen from a certain Naruto-Chapter, I'm certain Hinata wouldn't mind. *waves Hinata flag* XD Expect a chapter called "The gap between our power", too, although with somewhat less deadly sibling-rivalry and no actual siblings.
> 
> (4) One of the things that was important for me in this chapter was establishing the primary "seeds" of the various aspects of "how Shinji perceives Rei" so that I can work on the individual threads from now on. First there is Rei as a confidante, who would be useless as such if she didn't bluntly say the truth to his face, but Rei's also a person who creates this space where she doesn't judge... which is, of course, in some ways entwined with/the basis of the next aspect, that is his perception of Rei as a stronger person who impresses him and... makes him want to measure up(See title. You could say that they all ultimately appeal to different, mutually exclusive sides/desires, but if you were to look for a common denominator between Misato, Asuka, Rei and Kaworu, it would be the ability to devote themselves completely. There's a too much for everything, and at least the girls fall under it, but of course, Shinji is seeing this from a position of humans generally wanting what they don't have, or think they don't have, like a naturally thin person telling someone with a tendency towards chubbiness, "I'd like to have your problems!", but more constructively.), and there's certainly, on the other side, protectiveness and a feeling of being needed, but – and that's the harder part to write and not get wrong – not this blunt, primal "Caveman protect little female!" thing, but a mix born from "compassion in a world that can't afford it", which is fairly characteristic for him, and, at this point of Shinji's journey easily slides into naivety, but could be tempered into something awesomer if he doesn't throw it away, and this feeling that for once in in his life, there might be something where his presence might acually make a bit o a difference, any difference, tiny as it may be. Fascination/mesmerized-ness is still there, of course, and was already beaten to death in the last chapter, and in some ways you could call it the cheapest aspect ("Duh, an unexplained weird girl with weird looks and stuff"), but it needs to be there for the... integration of everything. Anno once discribed love as "the motion of the spirit towards something it doesn't understand", and while one doesn't have to agree with that as all-encompassing , hm...What bugs me is that he doesn't specify if that motion is because, or inspite of the lack of understanding – Personally, I find the former too narrow(not encompassing things that are clearly love), the latter to wide(possibly including subsets that I would call not love), but that may be an actual difference in opinion and not a definition problem. But wether the definition is complete, I think both categories are definitely a thing, and I tried to include them here, both the deep fascination and the "running through a minefield to get to something good" You see a bit of that in most relationships in EVA, I think. It was even more important for me to show that... Rei was 'staring back'/taking an interest too from the other side, not being 'conquered'... while still keeping it subtler than some cheesy love at first sight thing, one of the impressive things of how this was handled in EVA was that you Shinji did NOT magically get her by walking on her like it so often happens in other anime (Although I do find naked embarrassed people as funny as the next person; It's the forcedness that is – at times – a problem.), but had to face a monster that terrified the shit out of him and pay some actual attention to what she says. The experience that IS technically possible to win over someone who was initially more hostile or at least apathetic ("hope that people can understand each other") is also important for Shinji's progression here. She was just supposed to have been sort of distantly curious before, taking into account that she probably had relatively few other "personal wishes" to act on in the less strictly defined parts of her rountine, with the latent empathy to the fact that he got nearly barbecued drowning out the previous annoyance. Rei II, as far as I have not completely misunderstood her, is simply not the grudge-keeping kind; It doesn't have to do specifically with Shinji at this point. Argh. 
> 
> TL;DR: This is important to me and I really, really hope I didn't screw this up somehow, especially not in some twillightey-looking way.


	16. 15: [Hope]

_**Nodody knows who I really am** _

_I've never felt this empty before_

_And if I ever need someone to come along_

_Who's gonna comfort me_

_And keep me strong_

**_We are all rowing in the boat of fate_ **

_The waves keep on comming and we can't escape_

_But if we ever get lost on our way_

_The waves will guide you through another day_

__-Rie Fu, 'Life is like a boat'_ _

* * *

"Very well. This debriefing is concluded."

"In spite of all adverse conditions, the outcome of this operation has been largely satisfying." Subcomander Fuyutsuki appended to his superior's laconic final summary. "If you don't mind, we will add a mention of your exceptional services in the planning and execution of this mission to your personnel file, Captain Katsuragi."

"Thank you, Sir." Misato replied curtly, standing upright across her superior's in their spacious office. "Alright then." Fuyutsuki continued. "The duties of cleanup, data evaluation and determining the extent of collateral damage will be the dubious pleasure of the technical division. You are dismissed."

"Yes, Sir."

* * *

As soon as the office door closed behind her, Misato allowed herself to drop the 'professional poker face' and surrendered to a hearty yawn.

It had to be about two in the morning by now... at the very least.

But she guessed she could be worse off – Ritsuko, Aoba and the others could probably count themselves lucky if they even got to _look_ at a bed before dawn.

Misato was fortunate enough to belong to the operations division, which, as the name suggested, had only so much to do once the operation was completed.

The only task she still had ahead of her was to pick up the pilots from NERV's sickbay, where they should have been given a thorough checkup by now – only a routine measure, since they had both seemed mostly unharmed when they had been been retrieved – curiously, from one and the same entry plug.

Indeed, she found both of them already waiting on a bench in the hallway just outside the examination room, where a visibly tired physician explained to her that neither of them had sustained any actual, physical damage, and the commander was already informed. The First Child in particular had apparently gotten very lucky due to the combined factors of her relatively moderate synch ratio and her swift removal from her half-molten EVA.

At last, the man departed into the well overdue end of his shift, leaving it to Misato to remove the kids from his hallway.

Both of them were still in their plug suits, but when she threw them a closer look, she received an answer to a question that had been swirling around in her head for most of the debriefing – so _that's_ where the commander's uniform jacket got to. He must have draped it over Rei's body at some point between her arrival at headquarters and their meeting itself.

The small girl could easily have disappeared into this piece of clothing, meant for a grown man of considerable stature.

For an instant, Misato could have sworn to have glimpsed a thin smile on her lips.

Shinji had been silently observing her until now, but he swiftly turned to face his guardian when he noticed that she was finally walking over to them.

"Shinji? Rei?"

"Yes, Ma'am?"

"As far as I've heard, the both of you should be okay, given a bit of rest. It's pretty late anyway. Take a shower and go home. I've arranged for you to be excused from any and all experiments for tomorrow – and obviously, school as well.

Shinji-kun, can you wait for me at gate number two?"

"Yes."

* * *

Now, at least two of the far too numerous doors in the pilot's shower room were being used – The doors did cover the most necessary and could be used to drape clothes over them so that you could technically leave your individual shower cubicle fully clothed, but Shinji would still have preferred to have a little more than a thin divider between himself and the next naked girl.

Theoretically, it could have been argued that there was nothing to her that Shinji hadn't seen yet, but that did very little to mitigate the inherent awkwardness of the situation.

Shinji had not exchanged particularly many words with her since the incident in the entry plug, but that as because there was no need for them – the silence had been one of understanding.

But then, his father had shown up at the infirmary.

At that point, Shinji had been sitting on a treatment couch with his plug suit removed down to his waist so the physician in charge could attach some electrodes to his upper body to measure something he didn't quite understand, and since the opposite side of the room contained a person of the opposite sex – Rei, to be exact – waiting for a similar procedure to be performed on her, a foldable divider made of thick paper had been used to separate the couch in question from the rest of the room, so that Shinji could only discern her silhoutte from where he was sitting – and that of his father, once he arrived.

After inquiring about the estimated usability of the pilots and in return received his answer through the folding screen, he turned to Rei and her alone to ask her about the battle.

Rei reported the events in a neutral, businesslike fashion, barely saying more than that the first shot had missed, that he had been put in charge of the defense, and that the target had been annihilated in the end.

Her heroic act of standing in the way of the angel's particle beam which she had eventually blocked with EVA 00's own body wasn't even deemed worth mentioning.

The commander's only comment on her brief resume was a curt "Good.", after which he remarked that it was also fortunate that she had remained unhurt.

Rei remarked that this was not extraordinary considering that the Third Child had quickly retrieved her from her Evangelion.

Shinji himself would have given a lot to be able to see their expressions right now, his mind racing with questions of what she might answer if his father should inquire further.

\- but ultimately, all of that worrying was for naught when the elder Ikari's reaction turned out to be disappointingly terse:

"I see."

After that, he commented on how Rei was still drenched in LCL and inquired whether she wasn't cold.

When Shinji, now fully back in his plug suit because he didn't really have any other clothing at his disposition right now, was finally allowed to emerge from behind the folding screen to inform Rei that it was her turn now, he found the commander, who was already about to leave, one step away from the door frame.

The older man actually stopped and turned around to face his son – yet the words of praise that Shinji had naively expected for a second never came. All Ikari did was to look his son directly in the eyes, with a stare that could have drilled its way straight through his skull and broken through on the other side, before he turned and left without leaving behind a single word.

But when Shinji finally went to address Rei, he found her wrapped in a black jacket with golden border strips and the occasional green ornament – his father's uniform jacket.

Any uninformed outsider observing this scene might have easily mistaken him for _Rei_ 's father.

Shinji hadn't known what to feel, and this hadn't changed by the time his thoughts were called back to the present, ironically by Rei herself.

She was done showering and – this time, fortunately, orderly packaged into her school uniform – left her cubicle, carrying both her plug suit and her towel under her arm.

She was probably going to leave now – so, it naturally followed that he was supposed to say something if he wanted the shrinking of distance that had taken place between them this night to be a permanent one. Somehow he had expected that it would get significantly easier to talk to her now that they had both saved each other's lives, but the real world didn't follow dynamics as simple as 'breaking the ice' or 'earning a relationship upgrade'.

Despite himself, he forced a shaky little "A-Ayanami...!" out of his throat.

She neither turned around nor made any other efforts to look in his direction, but that she stopped just where she had been standing right then established beyond doubt that she was listening – and he suddenly realized that he was expected to answer now, but had never thought about _what_ exactly he was going to say.

His mouth was already opened in the preemptive motions of this maneuver, but no words would come out.

Rei just kept standing there, giving him no outward signs of any kind indicating whether she was getting impatient, or just expecting his next words, which either way defaulted to the conclusion that he was currently _making_ her wait.

He had to say something... at least something simple.

"Uhm, good night."

Rei didn't answer.

Just as Shinji was wondering just where his hapless attempt fell on a scale between 'pretty awkward' and 'absolutely ridiculous', she set herself back into motion – did he just confuse her just now, or had she simply tired of standing round waiting for him to form coherent sentences?

At least, Shinji would leave this room educated about the dozens of light years between him and an understanding of this girl: Just as she reached the threshold, she paused again.

"See you later."

Three simple quiet words that weren't even spoken with particularly much emotion, but to Shinji, they held a wealth of meaning:

She had said 'see you later', not 'farewell'.

This time, her parting words didn't fill Shinji with this unmeasurable sad feeling that they would never meet again, but with some sort of unfamiliar warmth fueled by the certainty that this girl would continue to walk through her life in a slightly different way from now, that the events of this night had actually... mattered.

It ignited a hope within him that he never dared to feel before and still wouldn't dare to speak out loud: The thought that he could really make a difference in someone's personal world, that this place wouldn't simply go back to the way he left it if he were to vanish from it the next day.

"Yes... see you later, Ayanami!"

It was true.

He _would_ see her again. He might have told Misato that he was only going to pilot the EVA 'just this once', but right now, he didn't feel an all too strong urge to leave, so he decided to just postpone those thoughts indefinitely and to keep going about his days without mentioning it – at least, for now.

He would stay and... give this all a try.

After all, he had just managed to get a little bit closer to the girl to whom his father readily showed that other side of himself... so maybe someday, some _how,_ he, too, might find a way to become a part of _his_ personal world as well.

* * *

Still in deep thought, and, to be honest, finding his thinking facilities increasingly impaired by creeping fog of fatigue, Shinji found himself in the passenger seat of Misato's car after the two of them had finally departed on their drive home, absent-mindedly observing the limited strips of world which either the various street lights or the small blue car's headlights protected from total darkness.

Misato attempted to strike up a conversation.

"Poor thing! You're probably just about to pass out from exhaustion! Don't worry, we'll be home in just a few minutes, and then we can all finally indulge our beauty sleep! We've really earned it, haven't we?"

Shinji didn't really show much of a reaction, being far too preoccupied with his brooding on the events of today.

"No, for real, you have all the reasons to be proud of what you did today. You're a proper hero!" she assured in a light, playful tone of voice, smiling in the hope that he would at least look her reflection on the window in the eye.

Accepting that Shinji was unlikely to be moved by great displays of enthusiasm, Misato toned it down a bit.

"But seriously. Everyone here knows that you were very brave today, and that none of us would be here anymore if it wasn't for you. You have saved us all. You just need to have a little more faith in yourself. I'm certain that even your father must be proud of you for what you did."

"That's what I'd really like to believe, but..."

"But...?"

"I... I just don't want to talk about it right now, okay?"

For how could he do that if he wasn't even sure _what_ to think of all this yet.

He just... would have to take his time to process all this.

* * *

As soon as he reached his room, Shinji let himself sink straight into his bed, following gravity like a falling stone – that he had even managed to change into some more loose-fitting clothes on the way was no less than a miracle.

He immediately fell into a deep and dreamless slumber, from which he didn't wake until the rays of the late midday sun had been caressing his face for a long time, finally reaching the precise angle needed for their full brightness to permeate his eyelids.

Tentatively beginning to move, he started out covering hairline with his forearm, casting a pleasant shadow over the rest of his face.

Only now did he open his eyes the slightest bit, initially directing them towards the ceiling.

He was wholly unaccustomed to be surrounded by such brightness at his time of awakening – instead, the Third Child was used to the pale color palette of the matutinal crepuscule, and this amount of light was more likely to summon up uninvited memories of his 'favorite' hospital room than to provide any sort of enjoyable experience. Contrary to the common reputation of his age group, Shinji could count all the times he had slept in this late in his life so far on a single hand, probably because he usually went to bed a lot earlier – He actually tended more towards the opposite problem of not really knowing how to fill the remaining hours until nightfall – most of the time, he had just spend this part of the day staring at the ceiling with his headphones plugged in, hoping to drown out at least the majority of the gloomy thoughts festering in the unoccupied thought space.

But this day was still far from it's overly drawn-out farewell, so Shinji stretched his limbs, tentatively at first, and ultimately decided to leave his room, his eyes still holding a faraway look as he stepped into the kitchen.

There was no trace of Misato. It was only at the second glance that he caught sight of the small piece of paper pinned to the fridge by a tiny magnet, containing an explanation in astonishingly scrawly handwriting: She had gone to work to take care of the battle's paperwork-related aftermath, complete with a simplistic drawing that depicted her swingin around a little origami sword in the right corner of the note.

If you knew her in your everyday life, it was hard not to doubt whether the word 'serious' was even part of her vocabulary – It was hard to believe that just yesterday (or technically, earlier this morning), she had earner herself a positive mention for extraordinary strategic creativity in the final operations report.

Soon, Shinji was forced to amend his conclusion, for the note was not even the only thing Misato had left behind for him to deal with – Apparently, she had treated herself to a package of microwave sushi before departing to NERV HQ, which resulted in the packaging, the plate she used and all the empty sauce pouches and soya sauce stains strewn across the table in addition to everything else on it – the thought of getting rid of the remainders of yesterday's curry nightmare did not even seemed to have occurred to her, the most she had done was push it out of the way a bit. All of it was still where it had been left, including Misato's now empty instant soup bowl.

The amount of accumulated used chopsticks left on the table would have easily sufficed to play jackstraws with.

Shinji needed a while to pause and think before he could attribute the oldest layer of encrusted old plates to their dinner with Ritsuko-san two days ago – Such much had happened...

The young EVA pilot wondered how Misato could possibly not mind all this chaos in the slightest – Whenever he mentioned it to her he'd get rewarded with a joke about how she just happened to be very busy, and how he was fussier than a purebred french poodle with a ridiculous hairstyle, usually coupled with a request to clean the mess up himself.

Since he didn't have anything better to do, Shinji started to do just that – technically, Misato was supposed to look after _him_ , but at times he couldn't shake off the impression that it was exactly the other way around, especially since he had ended up doing nearly all of the housekeeping lately.

Today in particular, though, he wouldn't have minded to find an even larger pile of dirty dishes, since he found himself confronted with his initial problem of not knowing what else to occupy himself with.

Normally, he would be at school right now, and there was always something strange about being in a place that was usual abandoned at this time of the day, like being in a school building at night... then again, comparing this apartment to some classic horror story setup might be a bit of a stretch, as he was swiftly reminded when the resident penguin suddenly waddled out of his designated fridge and greeted him with a not entirely pleased "Waaak!"

More than the bird himself, Shinji found the notion of having already gotten pretty used to the strange animal somewhat startling.

"Good morning, Pen-Pen!" he greeted.

"Waaak!" came the reply.

Shinji chose to interpret this as a good sigh.

The hot springs penguin then pointed one of his... wings? Arms? (Shinji had no idea wether there was any establishes naming convention for how to refer to a flightless bird's front limbs) at his feeding dish, which _was_ sufficiently filled, but the Third Child could not really fault his feathered flatmate for eschewing the formless mass that his mistress had gifted him with.

Shinji took pity on the bird and opened him a can of sardines.

It wasn't much of a stretch to interpret the sound that followed before Misato's pet went to greedily devour it's lunch as a gesture of gratitude.

The boy toyed with the thought of having lunch as well, but couldn't summon up anything resembling proper hunger, and thus he was still out of ways to chase away the time.

He guessed that Touji and Kensuke would probably have been overjoyed if they were the ones getting a day off, but Shinji couldn't really think of anything to do with it.

For a moment he wondered what Ayanami might be doing right now.

She had a day off as well, but he couldn't think of many things that could be done in that stark, empty apartment room – maybe she was reading right now, after all, that was what she did to pass the time when she had waited for him to regain consciousness, and he culd also recall a pile of complicated-looking books on her dresser.

Shinji considered listening to some music, but ultimately settled on taking care of the homework he hadn't been able to work on yesterday, since he had been busy saving humanity.

The very idea that he was able to come up with a serious, non-ironic sentence containing both the words 'homework' and 'saving humanity' that nonetheless accurately reflected his life was a telltale sigh of just how crazy his life had managed to become in so little time.

Still, he could no longer rightfully call himself a complete stranger to this mad, ludicrous world of EVAs, angels, giant underground complexes and blue haired girls who didn't mind being seen naked. Since his arrival, he had formed many new bonds, lived through many new experiences and maybe even made a bit of an unique difference to the fate of this place and its people – yet, at the same time, the recent battles had taught him anew what this place made apparent over and over again: That he might never really get used to this place and is seemingly endless repertoire of new, disturbing surprises.

After the homework was taken care of, it occurred to him to take a look at the apartment's veranda. He knew there was one, but he'd always found it too embarrassing to actually ask to see it or what it looked like. It seemed silly to engage a conversation with Misato just to satisfy a passing whim of curiosity – Since she had said that this was supposed to be his home now and everything in here was at his disposal, he figured that it should be fine if he went and checked it out, but he still felt nervous at the mere thought that he would do something 'without her knowledge'. When he did open the door, the veranda turned out to be fairly large, with only a few pieces of cheap, plastic lawn furniture to adorn it – from the looks of it, this place hadn't seen much use in the time Misato spent living here, everything was covered with a gray layer of dust.

Shinji stopped to send a look downwards to the city. The view was nice, but this apartment was pretty far up, so he tried not to look down all too directly lest his not inconsiderable fear of heights assert itself.

There was one undeniable perk to this place, though – it was pleasantly calm so far above the streets; the noises of the city only reached these heights in a substantially dampened form, if at all.

Actually, the more the Third Child considered it, the more this seemed like the ideal place for- until now, he simply hadn't felt like it, or had been to embarrassed to ask Misato about it or do it where she would notice, she was bound to comment on it in some way that would just end up fueling his awkwardness and insecurity about the whole thing, but now, on the day after his third battle in EVA 01, he chose to finally unwrap his old Cello, and take possession of a little bit of living space by designating it as his very own practice corner, a figurative 'secret garden' no one else knew about.

With great care, he lifted his instrument out of its box, where it had remained untouched in a corner of his room until now, grabbed himself one of the chairs and prepared the music stand he kept in the same box, before finally taking his place on the chair.

Much like he expected, he was terribly out of practice.

In some ways, his dealings with this musical instrument were similar to his career as an EVA pilot – sometimes he seriously wondered why he even bothered with either of these things.

But at last for right now, he had decided to just continue for a while... with both of them.

* * *

"...I am once again in your debt."

"And you'll hardly be able to pay me back! As for the material they demanded under the Freedom of Information act, I've had the people in charge black out the relevant parts of the documents. Their lawyers are already preparing a formal complaint to the government, but of course, that will be useless. What about the project itself? Anything else you want me to take care of?"

"Judging by the material you have sent me, that won't be necessary. Proceed as planned."

"Alright! I'll go pick up your little packages then!"

"Very well. We will discuss further proceedings in person."

Once his interlocutor had hung up the phone, Ikari folded his own back together and swiftly put it away, after which he folded his hands into each other like he typically did and rested his chin on them.

Everything was going according to plan.

He didn't even bother to look up when he heard the door of his office sliding open – The person who just stepped inside personally made sure to bring herself into his field of vision and occupy as much of his field of vision as she could. It was Dr. Akagi, although not in the attire she commonly wore around the base. Gone were the blue top with its large pull ring and her white lab coat, replaced by a black mini dress so tight that one might wonder why the pieces of fabric that formed it didn't just burst apart.

She was even more tarted up than usual, her face thoroughly smeared with make-up that displayed her lips in an intrusive, coral red, bolstering their volume through several optical tricks and imbuing then with a lifeless, mineral shimmer of ruby.

Not even her excessively applied, choking cloud of perfume could mask the stench of cigarettes that clung to her.

Even the hair was obviously fake.

Repulsive.

Sometimes, very rarely, Ikari distantly wondered if anything about this woman was real at all, but that was the most thought he would ever spend on her.

This woman, if she could still be referred as such, was nothing but the means to an end – She might have some illusions about being a replacement's replacement, but to do any replacement, she would have needed to have some vague resemblance to the real thing.

Yes, she might have had the same, rather rare eye color, general hair length and skin color, but none of these things were what he really loved about Yui.

This whore was just as fake and disgusting on the inside as she was in terms of appearance, as much as she might hide her true self behind a mask of false congeniality – but when he looked at himself, he had to concede that he had to right to push her away from himself – that same, difficult and ugly nature made it an untenable risk to openly scorn her, and as a punishment he had chosen himself, she was probably just what she deserved.

He couldn't fathom what this woman (or her mother) had been looking for when they threw themselves on him – He had nothing to give them, he swore he couldn't fix them, and neither did he have any interest in doing so, nor was there anything about them he could possibly desire.

This wasn't even about sating some sort of lowly drive, merely the maintenance of an instrument whose rebellion would be inconvenient to his plans right now – Every time he was made to look at her face, he longed for the day he would cast off this filthy, inconvenient body and meet his beloved in the light, just as she remembered him from the day of their parting.

That someone like Yui had even wound up anywhere near him in the first place... had to have been some great mishap of fate, remedied just as quickly as it had taken place, like a random quantum fluctuation in the vacuum.

That woman walked over to his desk and leaned forward, as if to place her breasts right around his face.

"...did you take care of the business concerning that government project?" he asked, dryly.

"Oh yes... but let's forget about all that for a while. You're going to that budget conference tomorrow, aren't you? I will miss you terribly, although some fresh air will probably do you good. You haven't been to the surface for ages!"

She laughed.

Her deep, full-bodied laughter was just as fake as the seductive tone she had tucked onto her words – she was just about as arousing as a plastic brick with the color chipping off.

That is, as far as he could even still tell such a thing. He had only ever had eyes for _one_ woman, and after years of letting his unending work consume all his life, feelings and thoughts and the desensitizing presence of this laughable, fake woman and others like her, he was seldom moved beyond this all-encompassing numbness.

He didn't say anything.

She was quick to hide her disappointment.

"Well, in any case... You'll surely want a little bit of... _relaxation_ before you depart on this tiresome business trip, right?"

"No."

She looked at him in perturbation.

"Alright. I know what you mean. Come here."

He stopped halfheartedly extending his arms towards her the very instant he heard his phone ring.

She might as well have ceased to exist in that same moment.

A swift glance at the cellphone's screen told him who was calling.

As unlikely as it may seem, he _did_ recognize his son's private number – and _because_ he recognized it, he banished his phone into the depths of a drawer and let it ring to its heart's content.

"Who was that?" the fake blonde asked.

"Unimportant. Let's get this over with, Fuyutsuki will be expecting me in laboratory five in about half an hour." he answered without the slightest hint of passion.

Akagi merely donned a thin, sinister smile.

"Oh, you won't believe... all the things that can be done in just half an hour..."

* * *

While the empty, usually deathly silent office filled with noise, the Katsuragi residence was enveloped by an uncharacteristic silence – Shinji heard proof of Misato's return a few minutes ago, but hadn't made himself noticeable, hoping that she would conclude that he was already asleep and try to keep quiet, which was just what he wanted.

He was, in fact, situated on his bed, although he was sitting on it more than he was lying in it, his mobile phone still folded in his hand.

He would really like to believe what Misato told him in her attempts to cheer him up, but...

"I knew you wouldn't pick up, father..."

After this, Shinji felt no more desire to talk or otherwise interact with anyone before this day was over, nor even to lift as much as a finger for any solitary activity, so he resolved to to what Misato already thought he was doing and hid away beneath his blanket.

* * *

This night, Shinji once again encountered that dream.

By now, he was already used to this: The sounds of the ocean, the fine white sand beneath his palms, the feeling of his drenched clothes sticking to his body – He was beginning to dread it as much as the ceiling of his designated room at NERV's overly bright sickbay.

Why was he here?

That question haunted him by night as much as by day, even if 'here' didn't necessarily refer to the same things at both times. He was no longer just wondering what had landed him here in the particular universe of this dream, but rather why he was even having these dreams, why he had to find himself back in this cold and empty place all over again every time he closed his eyes for too long, why some part of his subconscious seemed to insist on telling him subtle variations on the same story over and over again, like some sort of mantra that he mustn't forget if he wanted to survive.

He just could not fathom it.

Perhaps he should talk to someone about this – but it wasn't like these visions were significantly influencing his daily life, or disturbing him enough to disturb someone else over it... that aside, this whole thing was madness. He didn't know whether he even _wanted_ anyone to know about this, heaven knew what this would make them think about him.

He just wanted these dreams to stop and leave him in peace so he didn't have to think about them anymore – and so he wouldn't have to endure this overwhelming, unfiltered sense of loneliness that inexplicably assaulted him whenever he found himself marooned in this abominable place...

The loneliness and pain of a thousand and one lives, the infinite emptiness...All of it came too him, too diffuse, and too cruel to tell from where exactly, or just why he had to suffer like this.

But none of that lament would do him any good, so Shinji decided to try opening his eyes in the hope that he might be able to do or trigger something to make this dream stop.

Above him, the sky stretched out like an infinite velvet canopy, crossed by a lone streak of crimson.

It had no borders, no frame – Shinji looked up and saw only emptiness.

He couldn't stand it.

Slowly, the Third Child turned his head to the side, to where the shoreline was, and in the waters lay an enormous, detached hand the size of a mountain range, gigantic enough to utterly dwarf the petrified, cross-shaped Evangelions, not to mention Shinji himself.

The ocean went on endlessly until the horizon, not revealing anything of what lay beneath its opaque surface – by now, Shinji knew all of this by heart.

It was then, however, when he glimpsed something he had never encountered in any of these visions before: Another person.

She simply stood there, all alone, in her school uniform, like a ghostly apparition that refused to become part of the background and its red lighting, standing on the surface of the water like a deity, several meters away from the land.

Ayanami Rei.

At least, she looked like her.

The pale skin, the short, blue hair – who else could she be?

The sight sent a decuman shiver, but also a subtle sprinkling of deep sadness through his body.

The Third Child couldn't explain it.

No matter how long he looked at her, no sense of recognition would come.

He just stared at the impossibility before him, unable to say a word, until she was no longer there.

He couldn't have said whether he had blinked or something, but just as he was about to call out her name, she disappeared without a trace, like a shadow at nightfall, like she was never there to begin with, leaving him to question whether she had been a figment of his imagination, his desperation for some kind of life to show itself before him.

Aggrieved, he allowed his eyes that had been opened wide until now to relax and narrow, and fill with tears.

Of course he was alone here.

He had _always_ been alone here, and although he couldn't name the reasons, he couldn't shake off the impression that this was just what he deserved, a just punishment, and the worst there could be, for there was no more desperate wish inside his thoughts than the plea for someone else to be with him.

Someone he could hold on to, someone who could take his hand explain everything to him, someone who could make it all make sense with her soothing words, and show him that he wasn't alone... Someone with the strength to believe that there was a way out of this empty, desolate world, who could tell him what to _do..._ Someone warm... and soft...

Someone... he could depend on.

And if someone had read his thoughts, he felt a warm, soft hand gripping his own in that very instant, and an indescribable feeling of safety and bottomless joy.

There was something _real_ and _alive_ he could hold on and cling to...

And the tears spilled forth anew, from a vessel filled to brink and waiting to overflow from the slightest additional excitation.

How long had it been since the last time he had felt the sensation of human warmth on his skin? How many eternities had he spent here, in this desolate place, without even the slightest shred of company?

He returned the tender gesture and gripped the hand like he would never let go.

And it was only now, with that tension relieved, that he finally noticed just what he had been staring past for his line of sight to reach the red ocean.

This couldn't be her, could it? It was far too crazy to be true, too much of a coincidence...

Something told him that he should never have seen her again, a wild flurry of shouts, tears, her necklace and the taste of her blood on his deflowered lips.

And still, there she was, tangible before him, the one person in the world he wanted to see most of all.

It was impossible, and yet, undeniable: The drenched, dark red fabric of her torn mini dress, that insufficiently concealed the location of her nipples and tightly clung to the triangle formed by her thighs; The mature, feminine shapes of her body and the attractive tan of her skin which her torn clothes revealed plenty of, including part of her scar that went on beyond the upper remainders of her dress and invited to rip the last shreds of it away to follow along its path, back to the old story whose red thread connected them both; White bandages that the hands of god seemed to have wrapped around her midsection and one of her upper arms, her long, black hair flowing over the ground, and last but not least, the tired, but confident smile on her well-meaning face.

Misato.

Shinji, who had sat up to get a better look at her, trembled and sobbed at the realization.

It was beyond his capabilities to get his surging emotions back under control, and he couldn't even say why.

The young EVA-pilot had never been good with this type of situation, but even if he couldn't remember _why_ he couldn't form a coherent sentence right now, he couldn't believe that she was really here.

What was she even doing here?

Why was she here... _with him_ , in this dark and lifeless world _he_ had created even though she had given everything to prevent exactly this.

He didn't deserve this... He didn't deserve it, and he didn't understand it either. She should hate him right now – but she didn't, she was smiling, picking herself off the ground and sitting up while he observed every single motion of her body in disbelieving wonder, every swing of her hair, every shifting of her breasts, and her full, inviting lips which didn't take off their smile for one moment.

For some reason, he was holding her necklace in her his left hand, and holding out in her direction, trembling as he waited to be judged.

"F-Forgive me, Misato-san... Please don't hate me..."

Shinji averted his eyes.

He had wanted to say something, at first, some explanation, or justification, but every string of words he could possibly think of fell short of his deeds, and so he turned back to what he knew he could say, what he had had to say so, so often, repeating himself like an old fool.

"Forgive me, please... I'm so, so sorry..."

But she gripped his hands with both of hers without a moment's doubt or hesitation, just squeezing it without letting go instead of taking the necklace from it.

"It's alright."

He stared at her in shock, like the heavens and the earth had switched places. She didn't sound reluctantly appeasing or sarcastic at all, just sure of her words.

She let go of his hand and wrapped her arms around his body, lovingly squeezing her form into the crevices and faults of his, burying her fingers in the wet fabric of his uniform shirt led by a final, ceremonial passion that was at least set free, now that they were no longer bound by any of the categories, barriers and lines of their positions, now that this war was over and with it the need for her to be his guardian, his superior, a fill-in for variety of things she'd never be, or anything else other than just another person under the same moonlight, offering her chest like a pillow for his wearied, tired face.

Shinji's own arms were still hanging downwards.

He was still staring forward at the piece of landscape framed by her breast and arm as if paralyzed, unable to process or explain any of this in any way.

"B-But Misato-san... I... I did... I am..."

"Hush now, Shinji-kun. It's alright now. It's all over.

You did well."

"But I- you wanted me to-"

"I just wanted you to make a decision, and you did.

I already told you that I don't care, as long as it was what you really wanted. If that is what we see here, then I'll have to respect that. I'm not perfect either, Shinji-kun, I've told you that before. I honestly don't know what I would have done in your place... Most likely, I wouldn't have found the right answer right away, either."

She pulled him even tighter to her own form.

"But you, you really did it. You made the right choice, for you, for me, for all of us. In spite of all that happened, despite all you said, you still chose life..."

She let go of him, then moved her hands to his shoulders, so that he had to take an upright position and show her his face.

He still couldn't bear to look at her directly.

"And do you know what this means?"

No answer.

Pulling his fingers tighter around the token she left him, he found the courage to look her in the face, more or less.

She leaned forward towards him.

"It means that you are very, very strong. You are a very, very special, very, very strong person. You should be _proud_ of yourself."

"But Misato-san... I... I did..."

"You did what you did because that was what you wanted. That's alright with me. I've already told you that, even back when you didn't want this to be true for fear of having to live with the consequences... You just wanted to, and no one can blame you for that, least of all me... but in the end, you went with the right path instead of the easy one, because _you_ didn't want it any other way... I don't think you ever really did something you didn't want... and I'm kind of envious of you for that, to be honest...

It was my job to show you the things you needed to do better, but the truth is that there were also many things for which I envied you..."

"M-Misato-san?"

"Shinji-kun?" she sweetly whispered into his ear. "Do you remember what I promised you the last time we met?"

He nodded cluelessly.

"You really earned it."

Then, she took him into her embrace.

She had said something about him making the 'right' choice, but when he looked at his surroundings, they didn't look like the result of anything going particularly right at all -and that still didn't tell him the slightest bit of what had actually happened for things to end up this way.

Still, this version of the dream had been almost...pleasant. He might just be telling himself things, but lately he felt like he had actually moved forward in his life... not only in his dreams...

* * *

Once morning finally arrived, however, everyday life took little time to reassert itself with a vengeance, which was synonymous with Shinji being forced to do all the housework because a certain lady adamantly refused to be woken up until he finally gave up when he concluded that he might accidentally break down the door if he knocked on it any harder.

Thus, he had just toasted himself some slices of bread for lack of alternatives, and supplied the resident penguin with some proper fish to eat. Sometimes, Shinji wondered how this woman (let alone her pet) had managed to survive until now.

It was only when both Shinji and PenPen were already eagerly consuming their meals when the alleged token adult in this house finally showed herself – In shorts, an open, loose cut vest of the same material which was probably supposed to form a set with the shorts, and a black sports bra, no less. She was standing in the door frame displaying a sort of cavewomanish pose, scratching herself beneath her breasts as if everything else weren't enough, and her hair also gave off the distinct impression of having come from some distant past before the invention of the hairbrush, or at least didn't seem to have met one today.

Shinji briefly showed symptoms of moderate shock, but they wore off rather quickly since such sights pretty much become part of his everyday life by now.

"Good morning.", he said, 'enthused'.

Reminiscent of a zombie, Misato walked over to the table, where she unabashedly yawned in the faces of her flatmates, and finally returned a somewhat marrowless "...morning." in Shinji's general direction.

Nevertheless, her usual enthusiasm returned very quickly once she got her hands on a nice, cool can of her favorite beverage and dumped a sizable amount of it straight into her throat.

The usual scream of joy, complete with tiny tears of bliss promptly followed:

"Ah, there's nothing like a cool beer in the morning to flush away your worries!", she shouted ecstatically. In the beginning, Shinji might have found this spectacle distantly fascinating in an intimidating way, but by now, it just made him doubt whether she was aware of her own age – To be honest, the alcohol content of her drink seemed to be the onl indicator here. If you had switched the beer can for a milk bottle, she would easily fit into the local kindergarten.

Shinji didn't really get how exactly beer was supposed to be particularly suited for the morning hours.

"Why don't you try drinking coffee instead?" he suggested, well-intentionedly.

\- But his so-called 'guardian' didn't even take him seriously and protectively bend forward over her beer can while maintaining balance with the aid of her elbow.

"No, No! I'm patriotic, and and a typical Japanese breakfast traditionally consists of steamed rice, miso soup and a nice drink!"

"You mean _your_ typical breakfast." Shinji retorted, surprisingly open with his ostensible irritation. "Oh, and speaking of breakfast, do you remember whose turn it was actually supposed to be? It's not surprisingly that you're still single at your age!"

That hit its intended target straight in its center.

Misato's right eyebrow engaged in uncontrolled twitching.

"Are you implying that I'm _lazy?!_ "

"A lazy slob. That's a pretty accurate description."

" _What_ did you say?" Misato replied, visibly irked.

Shinji considered his breakfast demonstratively finished at this point, and rose from his seat.

But in spite of all his complaints, he ended up donning an apron and taking care of all the dirty dishes by himself for the umpteenth time, not before having provided Misato with some slices of toasted bread of her own, which she seemed to interpret as an official license not to take any of his arguably valid objections seriously in the least, gave up her mostly symbolic gesture of properly closing her top after the first two buttons, and generally grinned at him as widely as it was possible with the aforementioned toast in her mouth.

"...And you're... really planning to show up at school today?"

"Of course!" Misato declared cheerfully, briefly removing the toast from her mouth to speak. "It's parent-teacher consultation day after all! This meeting could be important for your future!"

"But... don't you have work to do?" Shinji asked, partially to show his appreciation, but still probing around the apparent softness for the very same hard edges and uncrossable boundaries he had met with his father.

But Misato just tossed out some casual reassurance: "That's no problem! You're a part of my work, after all!"

"Part of-? ...I see." Shinji's mood appeared to have gone through a process similar to a falling vase on the spot.

Just now, he was concerning himself with the possibility of burdening her, and then, she had to go and let something like that slip out of her lips, just like that, like it was nothing...

And there he was, beginning to delude himself into thinking that there was something connecting them apart from the EVA, that this was different from the arrangement with his teacher...

Misato likewise noticed that this might not have been the wisest choice of words to calm him down, and paused her matutinal display for a guilty look aside – Until the doorbell chimed in as a welcome distraction that lead her to reach for the inter phone to provide the visitors waiting at the base of the tall apartment complex with a befitting reception and possibly, entrance.

"Oh, thank you for coming all this way!" she announced in her best cheery tone. "No problem, just wait a minute!"

Shinji, who had used the meantime to equip himself with a school bag, promptly turned around at the incoming threat of humiliation with a bright red face.

"Misato-san... Please don't open the door dressed like this... That would be very embarassing..." he begged.

"For you or for me?" she simply asked, crossing her arms and jokingly pushing her chest outward.

The crazy thing was that this retained a certain crude, arousing quality despite her unkempt state, causing Shinji to tun away _a fortiori_ , his face glowing with a mix of overload and the realization that he'd actually been looking before common sense and annoyance reasserted themselves and intermingled with the newly refreshed memory of this morning's dream making it all worse.

Thankfully, the whole situation quickly dissolved itself when the bell on the apartment door rung.

Behind it were Touji and Kensuke.

Both were grinning like idiots and the former was carrying his school bag in a very...interesting fashion that involved wearing the strap around his head.

"GOOD MORNING, IKARI-KUN!" they called in unison, before synchronously turning around and peering into the apartment while holding on to the door frame. "HAVE A NICE DAY, MISATO-SAN!"

Shinji had barely managed to back out of the way, horrified about having to concede that he just completely failed to keep those two from glimpsing the 'imposing' sight of his half-naked guardian – but thankfully she had possessed at least enough common sense to hide away in the kitchen and show them no more than her unclothed arm as she waved to them while wishing them a nice day too – Paradoxically, this was more than enough to leave them staring after her in adoration and get a very impressed "Aaaaaaahhh...~~" out of them, much to Shinji's bewilderment. He couldn't deny that Misato was significantly attractive and liable to looking quite cool if you saw her on duty, but any initial awe he might have held quickly evaporated after spending a few days in her squalid apartment and getting himself drafted into being her personal char lady.

He just wanted to get the hell out of here before she got any _ideas_ within earshot of his friends.

"Let's go already..."

By the time the three boys had left the building, Misato had taken a quick shower, wrapped herself in some green towels as an improvised and quite insufficient covering, grabbed another can of beer from the fridge, and opened it.

In spite of all the complaints she had to endure this morning, there was a genuine, serene smile on her face.

"Ironic, isn't it?" she quietly wondered to herself as she was gulping down another mouthful of beer. "You can tell that he's starting to really feel at home here when he honestly says what he doesn't like..."

She still remembered when he first stood before that doll with this meek, uncertain smile, asking whether he wouldn't be a bother – During their first proper meal together, he even came pretty close to hiding under the table! And cute as it may have been in such generally hilarious contexts, they way he seemed to just accept everything even when his real dissatisfaction with the state of affairs was painfully obvious could be downright creepy at times, it was just something she couldn't stand to see reflected at her.

Besides, him voicing the desire to have a specific degree of order and cleanliness here was a sure sigh that he had truly come to see this place as something of his own that he also deserved jurisdiction over, that he was beginning to feel more comfortable... which was what she had been trying to accomplish from the very beginning.

'Managing' Shinji may not have been as easy as she had initially expected it to be, but nonetheless, today was a good way on which she felt that she had ultimately been able to make genuine progress – and this meant that there might still be hope for this world.

Nonetheless, her temporary joy did not cloud her view of the very insurmountable-looking challenges looming in front of them all, be it the ever unannounced attacks of angelic juggernauts, or this serial killer – tomorrow morning, the newspaper headlines had in fact told of a new brand new case. There were claims of an entire pile of rotting bodies having turned up in an abandoned warehouse, apparently dragged there by the killer without this... liquification the reports had spoken of. This was getting more and more abstruse – one strange factor (like the strange ways of killing) might well be expected with the work of someone who was a crazy serial killer to begin with, a second (like this supposed piled-up collection of corpses) may be a coincidence that was bound to happen somewhere on this world, but when you added a third extreme oddity (like her having been told that this killer was supposedly already dead), it was obvious evidence of some sort of foul play.

But Misato had nothing tangible to build her suspicions on – Sure, that person, whoever they were, had attacked Shinji, but as far as she knew, it didn't seem like they explicitly sought him out, nor did she have anything to justify how any of this was related to her area of jurisdiction, or even NERV itself.

Misato sighed and picked up her phone.

"He's on his way to school. Guard him well.

* * *

Meanwhile, Shinji was following closely after his friends, an expression of uncharacteristic bliss and serenity on his face.

Embarrassing personal quarrels of the daily life aside... it was a beautiful feeling when others came to pick him up, to actually dedicate their time to him in such a way.

"So, _Shinji_ , how are you today?"

"Uh, not too bad..." he answered with an uncertain smile, still not wholly used to Touji addressing him by his first name.

"Why do you ask?"

"Nothing. It's just that both you and Ayanami were absent from school yesterday. We were wondering if you get hurt or something."

"No, not at all.. it just got pretty late..."

"Well, in that case we've got nothing to worry about..."

"Soooo, onwards to the next point of interest! How was the battle?" Kensuke asked with sparkling little stars in his eyes.

"Uh, that was.. er, that went... like this..."

As far as his rather modest knowledge about strategy and technology allowed it, Shinji tried his best to explain the rough technical outlines of Operation Yashima, while avoiding the subject of his own participation in the progression of the actual battle, or even mentioning his state at the time, let alone the whole deal with his father... that was something he neither wanted to speak nor think about right now.

As usual Kensuke deemed it all impossibly cool, spewed ample praise for Misato's tactical genius (and her looks, although these weren't really related to the battle) and lamented that he didn't get the opportunity to participate in the battle as a fellow EVA pilot – Even if he had been very sparse with any descriptions of the most unpleasant experiences, it was a mystery to Shinji how someone could hear his story and not feel glad that they didn't have to go through this sort of thing themselves – one of the few things he was halfway comfortable describing was the terrific amount of molten rock the angel's attacks had left behind.

Touji's reactions to the account of the battle were more sensible, but in exchange, he was all the more enthused about singing the praises of Misato. Deciding not to go ount of his way to burst their bubble, Shinji simply gave them the answers they requested and left it to them to connect the dots in the most roundabout manner possible as they constructed themselves an idea of both being an EVA pilot and life with Misato that had fairly little in common with the truth.

"Either way, we knew you could do it! All of us did."

"I... I hardly deserve any credit for this. If it wasn't for the efforts of Misato-san and Ayanami, or even your support, there's no way I could have done this, and I still very nearly screwed it up..."

"No, no, there's no need for fake humility here!" Kensuke stated. "After all, you have now successfully rescues your very first distressed damsel! That's an important milestone in the career of any superhero... and just to hammer home how ridiculously lucky you are, she was none other than the girl of your dreams! Oh, if only I could be an EVA pilot... it must be nice when all the girls worship you like that..."

"I'm not a superhero... I'm not being worshiped... and Ayanami isn't 'the girl of my dreams'. It's not like that at all..."

"Oh really?" Kensuke didn't seem all too convinced. "If that's what you say, I'll just go on and believe you."

"So what was it like, after you saved her?" Touji asked. "Did you have to wait much until they retrieved you? Did you say something to her?"

Not feeling that this moment was something he could easily speak about, nor wanting to bring the unavoidable teasing on himself that would inevitable follow if he told those two that they had engaged in an activity for which he couldn't come up with any description other than 'holding hands', he decided on a simplified answer:

"Well, I guess she was grateful and happy about being saved. I mean, at least I think she was. She did smile, though, so-"

"What? For real? She actually _smiled?_ "

"She can actually _do_ that?"

"Uh, sure... why wouldn't she?What's so strange about that..."

"Maybe because no one at school has _ever_ seen her do it?"

"Damn it Ikari, you're so lucky, you should go to jail for it! As if it wasn't enough to live under the roof of the gorgeous Misato-san and pilot an EVA, you also get to be one of the most popular guys in our glass, and even our inapproachable ice princess can't help but melt away under the influence of your charms..."

"Although I would still stick with Misato-san if I were in your place."

"It's... really nothing like that..."

* * *

Nothing indeed.

When he next laid eyes on Ayanami, it was yet another of these stray gazes across the classroom like countless others before it, they had almost become a standardized part of his average school day since his arrival in Tokyko-3, and like many times before, she appeared every bit as distant and aloof as she did the last time, nothing about her looked the slightest bit different from the usual condition, like nothing had ever happened at all, and the last few days were nothing but a wishful dream that was already beginning to fade.

Like so many times before, he found her at her usual seat, resting her head and the thick, blue hair on it on her intertwined fingers, silently gazing out of the window without showing any indication that she was paying very much attention to her surroundings – Shinji felt reminded of his father's usual posture, the one he always took at his own desk or his console in central dogma, right down to the nonexistent expression.

He recalled how Dr. Akagi had compared the two of them – and he had personally witnessed how they definitely seemed to be on a similar wavelength.

When he considered this thought, Shinji couldn't help but feel a certain heaviness hanging over him – As his biological son of NERV's sombrous commander, one would expect that he would get along with him at very least as well as Rei did, but that was very far from being the case. In all the time he had spent in the same town, working in the same buildings, they had hardly ever spoken to each other.

...but at the very least, he had allowed him to finish that battle two days ago.

Maybe... just maybe... things would continue to go well from now on, and his father would come to rely on him over time, maybe he wasn't even too far from earning his actual trust...

After all, he had briefly stopped in his tracks to look at him when he came to check up on Rei after their medical exam...

Or was he just reading too much into it?

That was when he noticed, and rather suddenly, too, that there was at least one pair of eyes that was definitely directed at him with deliberate purpose, but in the present rather than the past – Ayanami's.

She must have somehow noticed that he was looking at her... but she didn't move or say anything beyond that, she simply looked him straight in the eye, unabashed and direct.

Shinji sent himself into motion and walked over to his seat.

Even though the teacher had yet to arrive, in spite of all that had happened and everything they had exchanged, he still found it hard to speak to her in a public place like this, where everyone might just start gossiping about it.

In the end, old vices die hard,...

...but...

When the bell rang to announce the end of the first period and he moved towards the door for a joint trip to the water dispenser and chat with Touji and Kensuke along the way, he heard a high, female voice coming from behind him, no louder than absolutely necessary for it not to get lost in the ensuing bustling of liberated students: "See you later, Ikari-kun."

Quiet as it was, this ordinary phrase held enough significance to make not just him, but the two other boys who had made their way over to where he was standing stop in their tracks.

As he mumbled a slightly clueless, "O-Okay...", Kensuke adjusted his glasses as if to make sure that the words had indeed come from the lips of the pale girl who had remained at her place, not drawn away by any friends seeking to chat with her or even the simple desire to move around a bit.

A particularized silence of a flavor between awkward and disbelieving persisted between them as a sea of typical break activities continued parallel to the meeting of their eyes over the noise, but as soon as the boys were out of the room-

"Wow! She actually _talked_ to you!"

"I... I guess so..."

"She _never_ talks to _anyone_ unless there was a _reason_..."

"Are you still going to insist that 'nothing' happened between the two of you?"

How could he not?

He still didn't know how to classify these events, he still didn't know how _she_ felt about any of this, so what should he call this? How could he speak of it to none else and know that he wasn't sprouting nonsense?

"Still, she just- there's nothing special about... talking to someone. I'm doing it right now..."

Nonetheless, it was a kind of proof, proof that these crazy events that had transpired on the summit of the Futagoyama had in fact integrated themselves into reality, that things were different than before.

The mere fact that she was speaking to him didn't imply anything like... whatever Touji and Kensuke were thinking, but it was something, something tangible, maybe a sign that she was 'counting him in' somehow, as more of an associate than, say, the girl with the short, dark hair whom he often saw chatting with the class representative.

Now, he and Rei seemed a

little bit more like actual comrades.

* * *

Later that day, Shinji spent most of the lunch break looking out of the window himself – Large parts of the inner city were still covered in the blood left by the angel's disintegration, many of the taller buildings retained large stains that had turned brown and dried into a thick, ugly crust, every bit like one would expect it if they had been left behind by a human instead.

He had succeeded and defeated the angel, but... ultimately, no one had ever quite told him just what exactly he was up against. Misato had only recently entrusted him with the knowledge that they were beings who sought to destroy all of humanity, but this was pretty much all he could claim to know, and the things he _didn't_ know encompassed pretty much everything else: Where did they come from? Why were they here?

How could they just burst into liquid the moment they were defeated?

Shinji probably would have continues his musings for a long time if he hadn't been distracted by the sound of squeaking car wheels – He immediately recognized the blue vehicle and the supercilious nonchalance about any sort of safety regulations with which it was parked in front of the school, and so did Touji and Kensuke, who had rushed to the window with an almost uncanny speed, squeezing their unsuspecting friend into what little space was left between them.

"She actually came!" Touji exclaimed, elated.

Kensuke had, of course, somehow summoned his camcorder from hammerspace at this point, and was already pointing it at his object of interest.

Both boys – and pretty much every male student on this side of the building (that's what he got for confiding in those two) – soon got to see what they had been waiting for, complete with a sinfully short, black miniskirt, white high heels, a sand-colored bolero and a white, strapless top that seemed designed to conceal as little of her breasts as she could get away with without losing her lob.

As she removed her sunglasses, Shinji could see that she has switched the small peal earrings she usually wore fore somewhat larger, cross-shaped ones.

While it was probably perfectly proportional to her outfit, the commotion she caused inside the school was previously unheard of.

"What a gorgeous babe!"

"Who is she? Someone's older sister?"

"That's Ikari's guardian!"

"What? Ikari gets to live with that beauty?"

Many of the girls were far from delighted by the sight of the boys storming to the windows – Hikari in particular titled them as "Such Idiots!". One of the exceptions was Rei, who remained silent in her seat, apparently fairly indifferent to the ruckus around her.

But the boys also had the occasional dissenter among them, such as Mitsurugi, who didn't seem particularly impressed with the sight of Misato or the behavior of his classmates. Unlike Rei, he did briefly glance over to the Window and listen in to ascertain what everybody else was talking about, but his attention soon went back to the Rubik's cube in his hands.

Kensuke, by contrast, wasn't shy to express his ardor in words and actions, which included using his camera to zoom in on Misato's face – when she noticed her young amateur paparazzi, her only reaction consisted of an even wider grin, and a V-sign flung in his general direction.

Both boys eagerly returned the gesture, while Shinji looked at them with little ostensible comprehension.

"Oh boy, Misato-san is really, _really_ hot!"

Touji was in complete agreement: "And on top of that, she's also the leader of NERV's operations division! How much cooler can you get?"

"Well, I don't really know..."

Touji and Kensuke looked at their newest friend like he'd just admitted to disliking pizza or chocolate.

"Say, Kensuke, aren't we lucky that Shinji is still such a baby?"

"Yep. That's one contestant less!"

Shinji found it hard to relate to their enthusiasm, and secretly suspected that those two would think very differently if they had spent the last seven weeks cleaning up her messes.

"Oh, if only I had a girlfriend like her!" Touji continued to slobber, blowing a kiss into the air.

"You'd have a hard life..." Shinji informed them.

But as expected, those two insisted on knowing better and just shot him odd looks. "You have no clue! How about this: You take care of saving the earth, and in turn, we will take care of Misato-san for you!" they suggested, affirming their 'pact' with a seasoned pat on their new friend's back without waiting for an answer.

As far as Shinji was concerned, he was beginning to feel abit like an actor stuck on the set for the wrong movie.

If anyone here was clueless, it was _them_.

* * *

While their words had mostly just annoyed him at the time, they returned to haunt him long after school, when he was sitting inside unit one for another test in the late afternoon.

Although he was still _very_ far from recanting his thoughts on the part about Misato, there was something else they had spoken about – 'saving the earth'. Earlier, Kensuke had jokingly referred to him as a 'superhero', too, but the reality of his current situation was even more ludicrous than any satire could hope to be, not least because those terms were actually pretty accurate descriptions of the kind of task he was expected to perform by and for this organization.

With an involuntary shiver, he recalled the disturbing appearance of the white giant he had seen beneath the lowest levels of NERV HQ. If one of the angels were to make contact with that creature... it was all over. That much had become quite clear to him, but beyond that... what was that thing, really? How exactly was it related to 'all life on this planet', as Misato had phrased it? And what about the angels, what were they?

Or the EVAs.

They were supposedly created to protect humanity, but Shinji had no clue what they even were, and he was aware just how suboptimal that sounded when he said that while he was sitting inside of one.

He had to think of the grueling experience that was his first battle, particularly this bit right at the end, when he had caught a glimpse of the EVA's reflection in a nearby building, after the outer plating on the face had been destroyed, and there was this eye, and the distinct, unshakeable feeling that it had focused on him, that it had _recognized_ him...

His initial hypothesis that he was dealing with a mere robot had gone out of the window a long, long time ago, and now he thought of it, Unit Zero had been largely fleshy under its molten armor, which was its very own pit of madness – for what sort of flesh could largely survive the kind of heat that reduced rock and metal to puddles?

And there were other strange things, subtler, but all the more unsettling in retrospect – Over the course of the many, many test he had been forced to sit through, he couldn't help but notice this faint, underlying scent of blood characteristic of the liquid they used in the entry plug – he had shrugged it off, tried to convince himself that this was too morbid to be something other than his dreadful experiences inside the EVA makind him misinterpret his senses, but on his visit to level EEE, he was forced to find out that the truth was in fact even more nightmarish than any impression he could conceive of, and yet, even though he knew full fell that he was currently sitting in a claustrophobic tank filled with the blood of that twitching, undying abomination, he didn't _feel_ all that unsettled, not what he would usually consider the appropriate degree.

Whatever flowed back when he let his thoughts float into the metaphysical expanse of the Evangelion's largely empty shell and opened himself up to connect with it kept exuding this vague sense of... safety and comfort, and there was also the... (grotesque as it sounded) sense cozy warmth the entry plug was kept at, which betrayed itself to have origins beyond the physical temperature inside the plug, just from the unlikely circumstances it arose in.

All these details, or indeed the very situation of being a guinea pig for some experiment should be nothing short of _terrifying,_ given what had happened to Ayanami on a supposed routine test, and the mountainloads of awful experiences he had personally lived through in this very seat, and here he was, _not_ panicking, wondering how this activity managed to be _calming_.

In the end, he was left with this irritating cloud of confusion about everything apart from his insurmountable conviction that he didn't know anything at all.

He had been EVA 01's designated pilot for almost two months, for all this time, he ha been completely unaware of something as crucial as this business with the second angel... they had only told him now, and even then, only because the alternative was him refusing to fight the sixth angel. At any point in the last seven weeks, he could have waltzed right out of Tokyo-3, ignorant of the vast consequences that his absence could have had...

What other ways to damn all of humanity with the slightest misstep was he yet unaware of?How was he supposed to make decisions like this, if no one told him anything?

There was still so much about NERV and the EVAs that he still didn't understand at all...

Unable to completely soothe his displeasure, he was beginning to process the sobering realization that this was simply the kind of world he lived in now – He had gotten himself into a world of great distances, distances that could only be conquered little by little, if at all. A world of insecurity, uncertainty and slow, tiny steps.

Once upon a time, before he came here, everything had been clearer and easier... now, the events and occurrences hunted after each other faster than his eyes could follow.

He still couldn't say for sure if these last few weeks had been a change for better or worse.

And he still couldn't fathom just why he had decided to force this on himself.

He was still pondering this when he found himself silently waiting on one end of the small platform that served to transport people up to the cage, or, now that the experiment was finally over, all the way back down.

Meanwhile, some the other participants involved in this experiment – Dr. Akagi, Misato, Hyuuga and Ibuki – were on the same lift platform, discussing a multitude of topics he could barely follow. The most he could tell that they started out saying roughly positive things about the results of today's test (So there was at least one thing he _didn't_ have to spend too much worry on), but later proceeded to discussing the damages resulting from the latest battle:

"So, what's the status on Unit Zero's armor?" Dr. Akagi inquired.

"Massively damaged. Judging by the finalized damage assessment, we'll have to replace it completely, but that will completely exhaust the remainder of our supplemental budget..."

Dr. Akagi sighed. "Perhaps we'll be able to relax a little once EVA 02 arrives from Germany..."

But Hyuuga was less optimistic: "I'm afraid it might go the other way around. Even having the angel's remains mopped up costs a fortune each time..."

"Money, money, money! I really don't get how they can be so stingy with the budget. Considering that we're ensuring the survival of humanity here, it's practically a crime that we don't get more cash!" Misato complained.

"There is nothing we can do." The fake blonde concludes. "EVAs aren't edible, and both supplying people around the world with provisions and securing the distribution of our few remaining natural resources also costs money. This is also a part of ensuring the survival of humanity."

"Still, if they're renegotiating the budget, the commander will probably be going to one of these conferences very soon..."

"He already left." Dr. Akagi comfirmed. "His plane should already be up in the air."

"He can take his take as far as I'm concerned..." the young technician stated. "His absence makes headquarters a quiet place..."

"Oh, and Misato?"

"Yes?"

"That event will be held tomorrow, just as they originally planned. Don't forget it."

Hiding his growing dissatisfaction behind a manual he was studying for the umpteenth time without ever having manged to suck any truly relevant information out of its pages, Shinji just kept standing where he was while the platform continued its descent.

What a surprise – from the looks of it, his father had disappeared off the map yet again without anyone informing him, and he probably wouldn't even have noticed that he ever left if he hadn't payed attention to this particular conversation, that was just the extent of how little they actually had to do with each other.

The Third Child didn't really feel like asking them, in part because their conversation was none of his business and he didn't want to bother or interrupt them, or come off as nosy, but from the way they were talking, it wouldn't surprise him if this conference his father was supposedly going to was not even in Japan. But even if the leader of NERV had left the country, what reason would he really have to tell his son? It' not like they would speak with each other any less because of this. _All_ he _ever_ heard of what was going on in his father's life were just things he picked up by coincidence during his own work at NERV.

And judging from Lt. Ibuki's words, he didn't seem to be very personable, or even popular with _any_ of his underlings... well, apart from Rei. Or maybe it was just some of them, or just Ibuki. Shinji felt like it was his duty to say something about that, but he couldn't think of anything in particular. He barely knew Lt. Ibuki, and so far his limited impression of her was that of a normal, compassionate person, but Shinji still felt that it was somehow his duty as his son to defend his virtues – but if NERV's aloof commander had any virtues worth defending, Shinji had never seen them. He didn't know what about him he was supposed to defend when someone spoke ill of him, or what to miss when he was out of town. Shinji briefly wondered if perhaps _Ayanami_ could properly miss his father, but that would probably be another one of those many, many things he wasn't going to find out any time soon – much like the answers for his questions about this... _being_ he had encountered that day in the woods, all of which he tried to banish from his thoughts as well as he could.

And there were so many other mockingly casual mentions of things they weren't telling him anything about... it was the first time he heard about this 'event' Misato was apparently planning to participate in the _very next day._

At least Kensuke would probably be delighted to hear that they were apparently going to get a new EVA, EVA 02 if he understood them correctly – He distantly wondered if Rei was going to pilot it, now that EVA 00 would be out of commission for a while...

Speak of the devil.

After a long voyage, the platform finally reached what was the ground level relative to the cage, and down there, they were already being awaited by the crew that had been dispatched to the neighboring cage, consisting of one of the women who had been in the same bunker as Misato and the others during Operation Yashima, a middle-aged male technician Shinji didn't really recognize, and most importantly, both Aoba and the unintentional source of endless awkwardness and stewing misery that was Mitsurugi senior, who immediately engaged his superiors with lively hand gestures and outgoing mannerisms, informing them how the last member of their half of the team had performed, a figure as silent an distant from him as Shinji was from his own allotted batch of synch score measuring adults, whose light skin and hair worked together with he ghostly white plug suit to create an illusion of an unearthly glow around her.

So far, Shinji had deemed it wiser to spare his surroundings from getting interacted at by someone in a mood as disgruntled as his, but since it was her, the words she had spoken this morning (not just during the first break, but also when they were both about to leave the building) were back in the equation, and with them, the feeling that he owed it to her to take the next step upon himself since she had taken care of the last one.

Since the adults were busy talking among themselves and both pilots had been standing a fair bit behind them to begin with, it should be easily possible to strike up a quit conversation without drawing too much attention (and thus, teasing) from them, and since Misato would probably take him back home after she was done talking, this was probably the last chance he would get to speak with her until tomorrow morning in a classroom packed with gossip-happy classmates.

In addition, he saw that she had her arms half crossed as if to hold her own upper arms and elbows, which rekindled his earlier worries that being connected to EVA 00 while it was still substantially damaged couldn't have been all that comfortable.

Sure, her expression and posture were a stiff sort of stoic, but he'd just walked out of a similar test himself. Despite how awful he had felt at various points during the last battle, it turned out that the actual, physical damage to EVA 01 was largely superficial, so that he found it mostly repaired and repainted when he reported in for the experiment today. While yesterday had been his day off, the various technicians had been busy repairing and replacing everything, but while the biological parts could be regenerated much faster than the corresponding bits in a human, Shinji had come to notice a slight sense of soreness right beneath his upper skin layers that partially stayed with him even after the hours-long experiment was over.

By extrapolation from how much worse EVA 's damage had been, he could guess that Rei had to be worse off than him even with her somewhat lower synch ratio, but _of course_ she hadn't objected to being subjected to _yet more_ unpleasantness after the more than sufficient dose she should have gotten while her EVA acquired the damage in the first place. While she was later declared to have no actual physical injuries, he had to support her when they first heard the retrieval squad's helicopter outside of EVA 's plug. Offering to help her get to her feet seemed rather natural since she was the one who had been unconscious just before and he was already conveniently holding her hand, but when he saw that it still cost her come effort to get to her feet, he was initially worried that she might have sustained some serious injuries since she was already weakened from the previous incident. She was at first somewhat surprised at his sudden urgency to grab her ("What's the matter?" "Uh..N... nothing...", as if having to have this degree of physical contact with her whole arm didn't make this awkward enough), and repeated her earlier assessment that she could probably stand well enough, and helped her towards the lights of the nearing helicopter, which unusually contained a very worried Misato frantically pointing around with her flashlight in addition to the typical load of paramedics (For all her apparent foolhardy confidence in her crazy plan, she ultimately revealed herself to be very, undignified terrified of the prospect of having gotten any of her pilots injured as a result of her actions, especially so soon after the last debacle), where they had provisionally strapped her to a stretcher, just in case.

Ultimately, it was just the usual numbness as her nerves gradually switched back to 'normal' after the strain of what must have been a painful misadventure, but Shinji knew from personal experience that this didn't mean it wasn't pretty unpleasant.

He wouldn't be surprised if she spent most of yesterday resting in her bed, which wouldn't have been necessary if he'd taken out the angel with the first shot, so while the whole deal had ended positively enough for Shinji not to bother with the whole self-blame cart when he had other, more recent things to brood about, but it did serve as a further point he used to convince himself that he owed it to her to g and talk to her, and do it properly.

In the end, however, making what he actually ended up saying look like the result of great conviction seemed to have been too much too ask, although this was, in part, to blame on the usual need to reach for the next best conversation topic.

"We're getting a new EVA, Ayanami... Misato-san and the others say they're bringing EVA 02 over here, all the way from Germany..."

The lack of immediate reaction of even a turn of the head in his direction was expected, but in his current state, Shinji couldn't completely dampen this dissuading feeling that crept up in loops and circles formed by pessimism's all too familiar dance of 'I told you so'.

"Did you know that? That other countries were also making EVAs... and that there's more than just ours?"

"Yes." she stated, without otherwise moving any part of her body that weren't her lips.

This was discouraging in more ways than just one, to know that she hadn't told him either. He obviously hadn't known her that long, certainly not long enough for her to spill anything she knew to him, and he didn't have delusions about that either, but it would have been nice to have reasons for further conversation, and perhaps he would have unapologetically liked this feeling of... knowing that there is someone in this same boat of not knowing.

Considering that Rei had been affiliated with NERV for much longer, it shouldn't even surprise him that she knew such things, even if she was also just a pilot... considering that the spent much time around his father, she might even know more about the EVAs than even Misato, and the more he considered it, the less legit reasons he saw to have ever thought otherwise. Their perspectives were completely incomparable in that respect... His second concern, however, wasn't as easily explained away, which was, simply speaking, one of opaqueness. By now he could tell that her not looking at him didn't necessarily mean she wasn't listening, but that didn't necessarily mean he was suddenly an expert on her or anything; In truth, he couldn't read her at all, he couldn't even tell if she had been waiting all day for him to respond to her, or if he was currently just bothering her while she was already feeling uncomfortable, and this was really the most untenable state.

"Hm..."

Before he got the chance to gather his thoughts and maybe take a closer look at her as she stood there, between control panels and corridors, it became apparent that time was up when Misato blithely announced that they were all finished for today, and filled even whatever last holes the one-sided observation of proper decorum could have left by taking the time to wave in Rei's direction and wishing her a nice evening.

Trapped in a private space of longing silence that seemed to exist in its own dimension separate from wherever Misato was spreading her usual brand of slightly forced, supremely embarrassing yet ultimately well meaning cheerfulness, he yielded to the flow of gestures and words leading him out of the room. There was very little he could do about that.

* * *

In sepulchral silence, Commander Ikari stared straight into the inkblot-blackness of the outer atmosphere.

With arms crossed over his chest, he sat in large first-class compartment on board of a supersonic jet, all of which had been reserved solely for him and his purposes, and yet, he still renounced all of its worldly pump by sitting right next to, and directing this firm, ambitious gaze right through one of the numerous small cabin windows, his choice a declaration of intent more than it was a pastime, for what lay outside was more in line with his nature, and far more pleasing to his eyes, especially now that the high altitude path of the man made vehicle was crossing the bloody edges of the southern region, though still not daring to approach the edges of the rampant vortex, where an old wound gaped in the skin of the red earth ball which to this day had staunchly refused to ever heal.

Even when he perceived the sound of a door sliding open, he didn't bother averting his eyes from the merciless abyss beneath or the outer darkness above – he had already been waiting for his informant to show up.

"Excuse me, do you mind if I sit here?"

The informant, a large Chinese man in a dark suit, didn't wait for an answer and cut straight to the chase instead: "The supplementary budget for the sample collection has been passed without further delays."

"Of course. The committee would never risk their on survival."

"And there is yet more good news: With the exception of the United States, all permanent members of the security council have approved the budget for unit 07 – and it's only a matter of time until they approve as well." the informant took a gulp out of a pocket flask he had pulled out as he went on explaining. "Excuses like unemployment or national debts won't cut it any longer."

The commander did not avert his eyes from the darkness beyond the window.

"And what about your country?"

"We will participate from unit 10 onwards. The plan for the second facility is still afloat – our only problem is that we still don't have any pilots."

That would be a secondary problem at best, but at this point, Ikari chose to keep that to himself, for he had other concerns to worry about – among them, the simple fact that there were two more numbers between seven and ten. As far as the other missing numbers were concerned, he was already privy to certain hints, but the number eight, this insignificantly tweaked symbol of infinity, cloaked itself in complete and utter silence.

"We can't afford to be negligent right now. The angels have returned, and the EVAs are the only weapons that can defeat them."

"That is true... No one wants a tragedy like Second Impact to repeat itself..."

* * *

After having taken his time to practice a bit on the Cello to calm himself down a little and actually achieved a fairly satisfactory Shinji did not expect to have this dream again.

Not two night straight.

But still, there he was.

On a beach in a dead world, beneath a blood-sprangled sky.

The familiar roar of the surf just would not leave him in peace under any circumstance.

Why?

Why did this have to happen again?

Why did this have to happen at all?

As much as he hoped to have found the 'solution' to the recurrence last time, when something halfway pleasant took place, this dream was proving itself to be very persistent.

Shinji had far past enough of this, he couldn't see any _point_ , it was like having a warning repeated over and over again after he'd gotten it the first time.

He felt this stubborn little impulse to just get over with opening his eyes to make this end faster, but he hesitated.

In his mind, he begged whatever forces controlled this place not to make him suffer the first, let alone the second variant of the dream – once again, he could fell that vexatious mass of alien feelings filling his being, pestering him without ever revealing their sources, _horrible_ feelings that made him want to tear out his hear and throw it as far as his thin arms could manage, gooey, succulent squirts of guilt, self-disgust and loneliness, stronger than he ever knew them, more intense and absolute that he ever feared they could be, hideous emotions in quantities that could tear him apart.

He didn't even know where this pain came from, so what could he do to rationalize it away? What should he focus on to repress it, how could he run away from it without running straight into its arms, never mind taking some real measure to stop it.

He was wholly and truly at its mercy, and all he could do was hope that he'd hit the version of the dream in which there was someone here with him.

More than anything, he wanted... some sort of company, _any_ sort of company...

Not necessarily Misato – right now, he found it hard to even have this kinds of thoughts aout her, he was still substantially disgruntled because of this whole housework thing, and her comment about him being 'part of her work' constricted around his heart like a thorny vine, fertilized by the many unspoken secrets festering around the joint workplace that connected them.

He'd prefer to have someone who was... yes, still pleasant and wise enough to lead him, but without expecting him to pay in slave work, favors or anything else, someone who would... just be there and let him be there, but still left him a certain distance without detracting from her acceptance... distance that left space for mystery and a connection to the things beyond this world, but without the completely 'unworldly' intangibility of Ayanami, he wouldn't mind if she talked, like, a lot.

But now, he could no longer deny that he was beginning to wish, and this was more than he ever deserved.

So he opened his eyes, and there she was again, where the sea touched the land, standing on the surface of the water like a mirage to be admired and desired, but never to be reached or touched.

Only this time, the sight of her, the sounds of the waves, and the fine sand were accompanied by the most curious of sight, a change to surreal that he barely payed it any mind because of it's sheer crazyness and the lack of possible sensible ways in which he could react to it.

The entire sea, including the furthest outreach of the waters that nearly reached his position, was a deep, unreal gradient of blue, like something done with a computer's graphic program, from a dark midnight color at the distant horizon, to a light-drenched cyan where shallow outreaches seemed to lick the white sand.

Had he been in a more ordered state, he might have connected this counter-intuitive sight of all these stories about how the sea had looked and smelt in the times of their ancestors, but as he was right now, Shinji couldn't process a blue sea any more than a green sky, or a forest where all the leaves on the plant where a bright, sugary pink.

Between the sea and the apparition above it, it was the image of the girl who offered more sensible ways to react with her.

Ayanami Rei. Or was she?

In any case, having _her_ at his side was something he couldn't even hope to _dream_ of.

Her image disappeared right before his wide open eyes.

This didn't deter Shinji from keeping up his stare.

That is, until he became aware of this blurred object at the lower edges of his field of vision, which he swiftly exposed as a female body by adjusting the lenses of his eyes.

The Third Child couldn't have explained why he began to experience this rising, warm perception, or why he began to quake with sobs and tears as soon as he sat up to get a closer look at her – the person next to him was not Misato, but a complete stranger.

The girl before his eyes appeared much younger, still ostensibly older than Shinji himself, but not by very much; Regardless, she probably would have towered over him if they were both on their feet and was generally rather 'developed' for her age – while she was fairly thin around the waist to the point that she might have seemed lanky if it wasn't for her wide, feminine hips and the well-stocked buttocks behind them – Shinji couldn't really see it in this position, so the fact that he somehow knew about it regardless made him pretty nervous. Her breasts, however, would have been very hard to hard and impossible to overlook, since they were positively _gigantic_ and her clothing did very little to hide them.

Wait a moment, her clothing... wasn't that a plug suit?

A _bright pink_ one, at that, also featuring the occasional blue or white element, clinging tightly to her skin and hiding very little of her ample secondary sex characteristics.

Damn, you could even take a guess at the outlines around her mons pubis... - Shinji took note of the numbers '05' on her suit, and then forced his eyes up to her face.

He _really_ couldn't find even a _single_ previous memory at this face in his skull, not at school, not at NERV, not in the city, not in the village his teacher lived in, her features just didn't trigger any sort of 'click' in his head.

As far as Shinji could tell, she looked a little European, although he had to admit that he had never ventured far beyond the previously mentioned locations, and his teacher's native village was hardly a nexus of cosmopolitanism. There was this lone Korean family, and Shinji had never really talked to anyone in this village anyway. He hadn't even _seen_ anyone from outside east Asia up close, except on television.

In any case, the stranger had long, chestnut-brown hair, one or two shades lighter than his own, and carrying and contrasting his inconspicuous earthy tone with a rufous warmth to her characteristic hue.

Her mahogany tresses flowed freely over the ground, and somewhere in the back of his mind, this registered as vaguely wrong, like she was supposed to have another hairstyle. What paradoxically didn't bother the back of his head was the ridiculously out of place, girlish blue headband which looked like something you'd expect on the head of a six-year-old – except for those small white plastic ornaments at each side, whose futuristic design of straight, edgy lines and general shape reminded him of... an interface headset for Evangelion pilots?

That would certainly explain the plug suit, but as far as he knew, there _were_ no other pilots apart from himself and Rei – wasn't that why they had insisted on recruiting him in the first place, because there was no one to beat the fourth angel in Rei's stead?

Either way, as soon as his initial confusion had abated, he felt inclined to make sure whether this strange girl was alright – but he wasn't completely in control of his actions in this place, he still kept feeling things that he couldn't explain, but still influenced his actions.

Carefully, almost tenderly, he lifted up the girl's upper body and cradled her in his arms.

Of course.

Of course she would be here.

Her never fading fearless smile that she kept even if the most dire of situations had always been continuous proof of her bottomless strength.

She had always been strong, and loved life, so much that she would spare the life of, think of _saving_ even those for which redemption was forever beyond their reach, specifically, the person who took it all away from her, who rendered all her effort moot, the one who let all of her willpower and determination go to waste in spite of the advice she had tried to give him.

It was obvious why she had come back, but why in the world would she be _with him_?

She had to be horribly disappointed...

She had to hate him...

And although he knew full well that her insurmountable superiority above him came precisely from the fact that she was wholly incapable of such ugly things, he still dreaded the moment of her awakening and the ugly mirror it would present to his own unworthiness, his inability to understand why she would spare his life, but with every moment in which this didn't occur, another, even ghastlier fear took hold in his mind: The idea that she might never wake at all.

He called out her name, a simple, short combination of sounds that would have slipped from his grasp by the time the rays of the sun brought him back into the realm of the living.

And indeed: She reacted. She lived, she began moving, she opened her eyes the slightest bit – they were a vivid, light blue-green the likes of which he'd never seen before.

She raised one of her hands, at first a bit tentatively, probably because she was still somewhat dizzy, and stretched it into the air. For an instant, Shinji worried that she was going to slap him across the face or otherwise touch him, a possibility that made everything about him stiffen in apprehension, but in the end, all she did was to plce her hand across her own face.

"Have you seen my glasses?"

That was... somewhat anticlimactic.

Shinji didn't really know what to say – part of him still wondered why he even bothered with being surprised in the presence of this girl, and put a small, relieved smile on his face – She was alright after all – The rest of his conscious reasoning was busy wondering just why he felt, and so far, even _acted_ like he knew this girl. Witnessing all of this in the first person was indescribably mind-boggling, but dizziness did not seem to be part of the experience his subconscious had decided to squeeze him into.

As for the stranger herself, she just contented herself with looking at him right through the gaps between her fingers and narrowing her myopia-ridden eyes, hoping to at least vaguely discern his outline.

"Hey you." she began, her seemingly unshakeable aura of good-natured calm and vaguely detached serenity barely perturbed by their post-apocalyptic surroundings or the kind of pose their bodies were currently arranged in.

"NERV Puppy, is that you?"

Shinji confusedly blinked at her. Did she just say _Puppy?_

The idiosyncratic stranger answered her own question by making use of her convenient proximity to his chest by leaning over to sniff it.

Strangely, this didn't freak him out nearly as much as it should, but instead filled him with a kind of fond nostalgia steeped in an aftertaste of longing melancholy.

"Yep! It's you! Including your nifty LCL parfume!"

She grinned, vaguely teasing but mostly just brightly.

"So, Puppy-kun, have you seen my glasses after all?"

"Uh... I'm afraid not... Sorry..."

The girl sighed and detached herself from his arms in order to sit up.

She arranged herself opposite him, looking somewhat peeved.

"Meh. I guess I'll have to do without them for a while." her expression shifted back to a warm, bright smile with a hint of something otherworldly in its corners. "At least we're all still alive... Good job there!"

"But... I..."

"It's alright. It's okay. You obviously can't be sure whether something is good or bad unless you give it a try, right?"

She giggled.

"See? It wasn't that hard after all. I _knew_ you could do it!"

"But I... I did..."

Shinji couldn't bear to look her in the eye.

He was completely undeserving of her certainty; Or even of dwelling in her orbit.

"You... you shouldn't have spared me. Neither you, nor.. Why did you do it?"

"Why not?"

"Why-... Isn't that obvious?!" Shinji demanded to know, almost lapsing to the realm of the accusing.

"Not really. I couldn't think of any reason. What good would it do? Would not helping you help us in some way, or fix anything of what happened? Excuse me, but I don't really see appeal in sitting down and moping, or just smashing things 'cause you're pissed. The Princess has been trying to teach me for ages, but I guess I'm just no good at it." she stated, calmly, hard to challenge in the simplicity of her conclusions. "Besides, if I _do_ help you, you could help us a little. You and the Princess used to be friends, right? So I thought you might want to help her. That's what I meant to tell you back then. And that other time, a long, long time ago. So no reasons to leave you, and even reasons to not do it. Sorry if that's disappointing, but that' really all I thought. As I told you, if you always worry about everything, you'll never get to have any fun. I think."

But she had lost him quite a while ago.

"...help you? Me? Help you? You and Asuka?"

How on earth did she expect him to answer that?

How could he possibly begin to?

"I'm the one who should be apologizing, and not just for something like disappointing you... I fear you thought too highly of me there, ..." He spoke her name again.

But the stranger was sure of her words:

"I don't think so."

" _Why on earth wouldn't you?"_

The girl just giggled.

"You know, Puppy-kun, sometimes you can be really cute with the way you just don't seem get anything at times."

_What on...?!_

"You know what? Let's dispense with the talking. It's just because..."

And before Shinji had grasped what has happened, she had leaned forward an covered his thin, exhausted body with the opulence of hers, evoking old memories – but this time, her head did not slide right past his to sniff at his neck or even whisper in his ear, but stopped to plant a tiny kiss on his cheek.

Even when he had risen to his feet, the initial bewilderment on his face was still nearly palpable.

"Le's go!" she said, offering her hand with a challenging, confident smile. "We need to go find the Princess, Sakura-san and the others! They're probably waiting for us!"

Shinji was willing to lift up his hand, but when the moment to make contact came, he stopped dead in his tracks.

_Everyone's waiting._

When he looked at the girl before him, the outreached hand, the way her whole body and every tiniest facet of her posture had transformed into an invitation, how a single glance would tell her everything about her truth, and the way she could not be otherwise, he felt the sting of an ancient pain flare up inside him, a faded image of another girl of such truth and honesty, who hadn't needed any sort of filter or discrepancy between the innermost of her feelings and the cheapest, simplest truth of her words and actions, a girl that was long gone, along with the world she lived in and many other lost souls that had been dear and special to him, along with those doors that, while still present in this world, had definitely closed and would never open to him again, at least not the way they were, not if he wanted to add something new to these ruminated pictures of the past that would only strike pain in the hearts of everyone involved.

But as sure as these bonds were forever lost, he had come to the conviction that they weren't worthless. If he was still here on this beach, then only because of the absent friends that had taught him these lessons.

As sure as these bonds were gone, they had been real; They held genuine light in them, and they had shaped the patters of his heart and mind, like someone he once knew would have worded it very long ago, and for this, he cried every day and he would continue to do so for as long as his memories would carry them with him, and he didn't want it to be any other way, he didn't want to stop hurting or caring one little bit for one of the sous that had been lost in this war, although he knew that it was probably too idealistic to not expect any numbness...

But this was another truth:

As sure as he had lost these bonds, he had also forged then long ago, and maybe, just maybe, he would be able to forge new ones, maybe with this girl before him, maybe with other people like Miss Sakura that were scattered across the night.

There was a time when he had loathed change, when even the minor shifts in the folds and conditions of human existencethat followed along with time were enough to terrify him out of his mind, but when he looked at this girl who seemed to embody the very unpredictability that lurked at the corners of this world, he began to think that maybe, just maybe, he might be able to live with it.

So the two of them walked hand in hand, leaving footprints in the alabaster sand although they knew that the refreshing, soothing blue of the tide would soon wash them away, and that low tides would follow them, over and over again and allow for very different paths of footprints.

And as they wandered along the shoreline, a crown of red refraction announced the incoming arrival of a sun he thought he would never see again.

With a blissful smile on his lip and a whole new world to be reclaimed, even a subtle, heady feeling of being on top of the world managed to creep into his thoughts with the morning sun, and once again, he wondered what he could possibly have done to deserve this, even if the words held a very different meaning this time...

But even as he felt the sunlight on his cheeks, the wet sand beneath his feet and the pink rubber of his companion's pink plug suit in his hand, among the wild flurry of emotions that was only new beginning to settle, there was also a faint, dreamlike sense of what was barely distinguishable from common, personal disbelief, a sense that somehow, somewhere in time, the calling of what now felt like a distant dream he could hardly even recall was still awaiting his return, it's distant, forgotten beckoning characterized more by the absence of characteristics to describe it with, hollow shapes in the recesses of his mind that did little more than occupy space and swallow any complete certainty of warmth more efficiently that silence ever could.

Still, whatever might be there, waiting for him to remember where he out it, there was no reason that the thought that warmed him now couldn't continue to do so when that tie came, when he would manage to think of the paradoxical absurdity he had been flung into.

That he had been forced to endure sad and horrible things in the past didn't mean that he couldn't build a present for himself right now... wherever 'right now' might be...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) A bit of what whipping out the Cello was meant to signify beyond creating this general mood of "passing contemplation" was to show Shinji in the process of reaching a certain critical level of comfortableness and stability, he's no longer constantly on guard, and reaches a state where... "something to do" becomes something he'll concern himself with/no longer immediately defaults to "grab SDAT player and retreat under blanket", as a companion piece to the "open complaints" thing, but also further exploration of the very apparent shift we have after what used to be ep 6.
> 
> (2) Yeah, the "trailer version" of unit 08 has made it into the plans for this fic, partly because this part of the planning was done long before Q and too entrenched to be changed/fixed with minor adjustments (like, for example, the Mari scene), and partly because it'll be cool to explore what the alternate scenario might have been like. While it is not very unlikely for finalized!EVA 08 to show up, it will probably be under a different number. I DO want that gratuitous infinity symbol symbolism, I blame it's use in "Nadia".
> 
> (3) So, finito, finish line, end of the chapter! What, were you expecting a little more? Sure, it would be nice if we could peacefully proceed to the next Act at this point but wait, wasn't Gendo plotting something earlier this chapter? Well, Anno certainly was when he was making episode 7, for how could you make a series about deconstructing the Humongous Mecha genre without deconstructing the idea of a Humongous Mecha itself? Therefore, there shall be derpy robots, misogynistic jerks and a very different side to both Misato and NERV. Stay tuned for chapter 17: [Flesh vs Steel] ! So don't be disappointed, Shinji, just one more mecha battle (for once, involving actual mechas), and we will have concluded the story arc! Surely someone who previously defeated eldritch monstrosities with little more than a glorified kitchen knife will not be daunted by a puny robot?


	17. 16: [Flesh vs Steel]

_**Nobody knows who I really am** _

_Maybe they just don't give a damn_

_But if I ever need someone to come along_

_I know you will follow me_

_And keep me strong  
_

**_[...]_ ** _  
_

**_And everytime I see your face_ **

_The oceans heave up to my heart_

_You make me wanna strain at the oars_

_And soon, I will see the shore  
_

**_I want you to know who I really am_ **

_I never thought I'd feel this way towards you_

_And If you ever need someone to come along_

_I will follow you_

_And keep you strong  
_

__-Rie Fu, 'Life is Like a Boat'_ _

* * *

When the next morning came, Shinji awoke to a muddy feeling of déjà-vû and the faint, lingering impressions of a faded dream, just like he had the day before, and he felt it even more definitely now, this strangely urgent sense of having forgotten something very, very important, like he had a pot cooking on a stove somewhere, or neglected to unplug the smoothing iron – domestic objects with whom he'd had far too much contact for his liking recently, although he had managed to avoid such mishaps thus far, mostly owing to his nigh neurotic fear of burning down the house accidentally, which had made him extremely cautious about checking every source of heat or electricity twice or thrice, never leaving anything of the sort unsupervised – Which was strangely not mutually exclusive with the awareness that he was probably a pretty pitiful sight while engaged in such activities.

And although all this was increasingly beginning to register as 'normal' to his brain, to the point that he could mercifully go through with the undignified household chores without thinking too much about what he was doing here, he still couldn't shakes off this strange dreams and the feeling of déjà-vû that followed them in the mornings that increasingly marked them as a distinct entity from the general chaos this piloting business and his new surroundings had thrown him into... nonetheless, this only worried him very distantly, since those dreams had begun to be significantly less unpleasant lately, and after all, he was being subjected to all these EVA-related experiments some of which involved monitoring his body function very closely, so any perception that the intensity of this episodes was slowly increasing surely had to be a product of his overactive imagination which could be reliably trusted to spin everything into an impending catastrophe.

Therefore, he decided to simply ignore these confusing perceptions, and finally put on the fresh uniform which he'd prepared and put on a clothes hanger yesterday, as if to spite the lingering impression that he had done this many, many times before, seen, heard and touched this exact same set of perceptions so often he'd lost count... But as time passed, either because he was more or less forced to pay attention by routine tasks that didn't offer much distractions, or because he was wrong after all, and the echoes that followed the sounds of the house were indeed intensified, he was beginning to think he could make out a second, female voice in the latter, of theoretical, not further describable _someone_ who seemed to be 'missing' from the present, as little as he could think of anyone to miss... it certainly wasn't the girl from his lat dream, was it?

The more he thought about it, the less sure he became. Just now, a few minutes ago, right before he woke up, he felt he had knowledge of her name and personality, but now, it was all just breaking down into a haze, even her face had devolved into vague outlines.

But never mind;

There was little he could do about it anyway, it was not like he could ever expect to receive an explanations for this.

Stretching himself a little, Shinji left his room and departed towards the kitchen – in passing, as he was about to close the door to his room behind him, he briefly felt like he saw a very different sign on it, bearing a name other than his own.

He shrugged it off and blamed it on the aftereffects of the dream, which in any case didn't waste much more time in disappearing like they had never been there as soon as he opened his window and exposed his skin to the warmth of sunset.

It was pretty bright today and appropriately efficient at chasing the uncertain darkness out of the rooms, and there were even the shrill cries of birds to remedy the silence, almost like the universe were feeling exceptionally merciful – or simply forgot about tormenting him.

Speaking of birds, the resident penguin was also up on his feet already, and used one of his fin-like wings to point at his food bowl as soon as he spotted the recently acquired secondary human.

Shinji sighed.

By now, he had no doubt that there had to be some truth to that old story about how pets and their owners often ended up resembling each other.

"Alright, alright, I'm coming..."

As soon as Pen Pen was provided with a sufficient amount of fish, Shinji popped some slices of bread into the toaster and waited for it to pop them back out in a somewhat crispier and browner state, after which both of them went on to enjoy their breakfast – He had also put a can of beer on the table in the meantime, even though he knew that it would probably stand there for a while before it was actually opened.

He had only just begun to mentally prepare himself for an encounter with Misato in her typical, half-naked state when the door to her room opened a whole lot earlier than expected.

Both penguin and pilot experienced an exponential increase in the size of their gawking organs – the former even dropped the fish he had been chewing on to let out a rather confounded "Waaak?!"

Right before them stood the impossible – Misato. Appropriately dressed. Early in the morning.

Lest anyone interpret 'appropriately' to mean that she had some sort of jacket draped over her sinfully scarce coverings, or even something like a nice nightgown, what would never occur to anyone otherwise had to be explicitly stated: Against all established laws of nature, her body was almost entirely covered with black cloth, specifically a high-necked, elegant dress with sideways slits just below the hips, paired with a matching, long-sleeved bolero.

Despise its tendency to expose part of her legs, her atypically upright pose managed to give the regular shapes of the dress a military tough... usually, she would look more like a moody cave woman than any sort of ranked officer.

Both the dress and her posture, however, worked together when it came to accentuating her shapely curves.

"Good morning." she said without the slightest flicker of hyperactivity, her demeanor more serious than it was even for most of the time he saw her working at NERV, unless there was some special occasion like an urgent, angel-related situation.

Shinji blinked several times to make sure that this wasn't yet another dream. But no, she was still there.

"G-good m-morning..." he stuttered, too thoroughly floored to even put his toast down. She was even wearing _pumps._

With _high heels._

"I'm going to Old Tokyo on business. I'll be late, so you better order out."

"O-okay..."

And just like that, she left.

Still holding the toast in his hand, Shinji kept staring at the door long after it had been closed.

* * *

"And then I said – with a lemon of course!"

As soon as Touji had delivered his punchline, he couldn't quite help laughing at his own joke, and Kensuke, too, seemed to find it rather amusing, which ultimately only served to direct their shared attention at the one person who had remained relatively quiet during their ongoing conversation about citrus fruits, warships, the meaning of life, and the deep and intricate relations between them.

"Hey, Shinji!"

Almost instinctively, Shinji reacted to the not exactly raised, but still louder than usual voice of his classmate, who was once again blissfully ignoring the school's dress code, a fast and somewhat subordinating reaction comparable to a young child suspecting that his mom may just have found the remains of an ill-fated vase under the carpet.

"What's... the matter?"

"That's what I wanted to ask _you_. You seem pretty distracted today. Did something happen?"

"Not really... It's just that, this morning, Misato-san was dressed up grandly for some reason, with... makeup and jewelry and stuff and, this fancy dress..."

"A fancy dress? What sort of dress?" both boys mentioned in tandem, taking little time in erasing the previously mentioned lemons from their mind to make room for what they apparently considered more interesting topics.

Shini suppressed a sigh, maybe to avoid coming off as ungrateful.

Those two probably thought that Misato wore this sort of thing almost every morning – in truth, she had almost seemed like a completely different person, like she had been abducted by aliens and replaced by a distinctly unconvincing, inhumanly well-behaved robot duplicate.

"It was a black dress..." he ultimately answered his friends' inquiry, somewhat reluctant to mention it at all, mostly because he could already imagine what would happen next:

The two boys' reaction made it very obvious that they had immediately pictured said dress in their mind and most likely imagined it to be a lot more revealing than it actually was. "You lucky bastard! No wonder you've got your head in the clouds today. Mine would be, too!" Touji's gushing was immediately met with Kensuke's agreement: "Oh yes! After all, it's hard to resist a lady in black! Especially if she's got a military rank... Sometimes I wish a lady like that would order _me_ around..."

"Well, she _is_ a Captain, but-..."

"COOL!" both boys shouted in unison before Shinji had any chance to finish his sentence.

They did not quite manage to infect him with their enthusiasm.

"And what about you?" Kensuke wanted to know. "Do you also have a rank? You _were_ wearing some kind of uniform that day..."

"Why would I have a _rank?_ I'm just a regular high school student, I didn't go through any sort of _training_ or anything... and that outfit isn't really an 'uniform' at all. It's supposed to help with the connection..."

"It's still cool!"

"I'm not sure if you would still think that if you had to wear one yourself... It's embarrassing, really, it feels like walking around half naked... and mine isn't even that bad, you should see what they make Ayanami wear..."

"Incredible." Touji said. "At home, you get to see Misato in hot black dresses, and when you go to work, you have the next hottie ready to be ogled! You know, sometimes I really wish I had your life... "

Shinji struggled to keep that treacherous sprinkle of red from solidifying on his cheeks.

"It's... not like that at all..."

"Yeah, suuuure..." The tone of Kensuke's voice made it pretty obvious that he wasn't convinced at all. "Come on, you've gotta have some sort of code designation at least, didn't you mention something like that recently?"

"Yeah, that much is true... I'm apparently the 'Third Child'."

"Cool! And what about Ayanami?"

"She's the 'First Child'"

"...that's a weird way to refer to the pilot of a combat robot." Touji reckoned.

"Who cares! It's English and sounds cool!"

Shinji had previously wondered about said designation, but considering all the other strange details he'd had to put up in this place, he could hardly be expected to put this very high on his list of priorities... very little would surprise him anymore, considering that he already knew all too well that the EVAs were far from being mere robots – but even he could tell that he most likely wasn't supposed to tell them about that, and even if he did, it would probably just end with Kensuke vividly imagining a battle between an EVA and an actual robot, and presenting his ideas as a kind of one-man theater play reminiscent of his occasional recreational military role play.

"...but there's still something rather puzzling about that..." Kensuke continued his musings, after finishing his extensive praise of the supposed 'coolness' of EVA-piloting.

"Uh... What, exactly?"

"Well..." Touji added, apparently having picked up on it as well. "...I guess no one could blame you for neglecting our English classes when you're busy saving the world, but there is one number missing."

"That's right." Kensuke confirmed, holding around three fingers and using his other hand to play around with the middle one. "Whatever happened to the _Second_ Child?"

"I... I've thought about that before..." Shinji admitted.

"...And?"

"That's it. I've wondered about the numbers, but that's all I could do. I've certainly never _heard_ anything about a 'Second Child'..."

It was not like they ever told him anything. "B-But we _are_ getting a new EVA, anyways..."

"For real?" Kensuke immediately responded with little stars in his eyes.

"I can hardly wait to see it! I'll have to film it in action... Who's going to pilot it? Do you think I've got a chance?"

"Why are you asking me that? I don't even know why _I_ was picked... I guess Ayanami will do it. After all, her EVA was pretty badly damaged..."

"Or maybe it belongs to our mysterious Second Child."

"Could be. But, to get back to the deal with the Lemons... _Ikari?_ Are you even listening?"

"O-Of course I am!" he assured, detaching his glance from Mitsurugi, whose father was eagerly waving goodbye to him just over the road.

"How about those limes again?"

"Lemons, Shinji, lemons."

* * *

While Shinji continued on his way to school, his guardian was likewise approaching her own destination – on a hovercraft.

Together with Dr. Akagi, Misato was sitting in the back of the flying vehicle, having spent most of her voyage being bored out of her mind. Now, however, their destination was in sight: Beyond the window, numerous abandoned skyscrapers could be seen, many of which weren't pointing straight up anymore.

It was a desolate sight.

"It's hard to believe that this used to be a florishing metropolis... It's just a testing ground now..." Misato commented, quite visibly wanting to be somewhere else, and not just because of the 'inviting' landscape.

Dr. Akagi, fairly equanimous by comparison, simply informed her friend that they were about to arrive – which did little to stop her from complaining: "Why did they have to pick this of all places... isn't the SSDF doing anything about this project?"

"The japanese military? No, they've been ordered to stay out of this."

Misato rolled her eyes, her words oozing with sarcasm:

" _Great!_ So they can do anything they want!"

With every minute that went by, she found herself with less and less patience or motivation to suffer through the upcoming event, especially now, as their helicopter was about to land amongst the various other ones.

Once they entered the congress hall, Misato demonstratively went straight for the one table that wasn't littered with greasy food, pamphlets and promotional giveaways, and Akagi followed suit – She did, however, not pass up the chance to grab some drinks for her friend and herself.

To Misato, this was one of these pointless peripheral parts that were hiding behind even the least mundane of job descriptions, a needlessly boring matter of appearances, PR and being seen at the right places – that the ridiculous toy robot these people had concocted would never amount to anything should have been clear to begin with. The banners that were hung across each and every corner all read 'Jet Alone' – probably an allusion to the purely inorganic materials said plaything had been assembled from. For all Misato cared, they could have one one step further and named that thing for the primary motivations to which it owed its existence – 'Cash Alone'.

She just hoped that they would begin the presentation soon, so it could end all the sooner, while Dr. Akagi, who had shown up in a simple blue blouse and a very revealing skirt of matching color was already mentally arranging the words she planned to throw at the PR guy that would unavoidably be sent to deal with then – and speak of the devil, there he was, charming (read: slimy), well-groomed and wearing a suit that must have cost more that most people could attain with a month of hard work.

And then there was the voice – how long did he have to practice to make himself sound _this_ pushy?

"In the name of the Japanese Heavy Industry Association, I want to thank all of you for coming to our exhibition. We will now proceed to the control room where you will be able to observe the official demonstration, but first, are there any questions you'd like to ask?"

Before he had even finished closing his mouth, the first hand flew up into the air, a hand that had been waiting for its cue.

Of course, the PR guy immediately knew who he was dealing with:

"Ah, the famed scientist Dr. Akagi Ritsuko! I'm very glad see you here!"

"May I as my question then?"

The PR-man displayed his most skilful smile, most likely fine tuned to defusing tense situations.

"Absolutely!"

Dr Akagi wasn't impressed in the slightest and skipped traight to the point: "Is it true that your product is equipped with a nuclear reactor?"

"Exactly! This is precisely the great advantage of Jet Alone: It's internal power supply allows for over 150 days of continuous deployment!" he reported straight into multiple microphones, apparently very confident in his product.

Nevertheless, the fake blonde was already prepared for an immediate comeback: "But don't you think that a nuclear reactor in a land-based weapon intended for close combat is an untenable security risk? I don't think we need any more nuclear disasters in this country so soon after the last. "

"What we need even less is failing to prevent another Second Impact because are relying on a robot with a battery that runs out after just five minutes." he jeered without the slightest trace of shame or bashfulness, or even the tiniest creak in his well-practiced plastic smile.

"Yours is remote controlled. I'd hate to imagine what might happen if the signal were to get cut off in the middle of an emergency situation!"

But the salesman came prepared: "So you say? I'd dare to say that using a remote control is at least much more humane than a system that puts its pilot under severe mental and physical strain."

For must of the discussion, Misato had spent her time sucking at her straw in seeming disinterest. "...they're beginning to sound like toddlers..."

Meanwhile, the conversation was steadily growing more heated, although the PR-man, true to his profession, seemed to have an easier time maintaining an appearance of level-headedness.

"As I said, a remote control can always fail!"

"That can't be much worse than having another of your metal monsters running amok in the middle of the city." Glib as ever, the man in the man in the expensive suit pulled out a folder labeled 'top secret', garnished with an image that was far too familiar to Dr. Akagi and her colleague. But he wasn't even done yet, oh no, now he tried to make himself look all personable and attempt some humor: "A weapon that cannot be controlled is the very epitome of disaster – It's just like dealing with a hysterical woman. Don't we all sometimes wish we had a remote control to switch them off?"

And to add insult to injury, she was left standing amidst laughter and applause.

Now, at the very least, Dr. Akagi's capacity for poised professionalism was all but exhausted: "Our pilots and technicians have the EVAs under their control, _thank you very much!_ "

"Or so you say." The salesman's stream of smug holier-than-though swank showed no sighs of letting up. "Do you really think that the human mind is capable of taming the beast that doubtlessly dwells inside every single EVA? Are you sure? Do you expect us all to bet our lives? Would _you?_ "

Did he really think he was in any position to lecture them about ethics? The nerve! Dr. Akagi's facial muscles were not far from losing all semblance of composure: "Yes. I would."

Just when the thought she had managed to throw him off his routine with an unexpected answer, he instead aimed for the finishing stroke: "There we have it! It's exactly because you rely on such evidentially unreliable things like the human mind that this sort of dangerous and most notably _costly_ accidents keep happening at NERV. Just yesterday, the united nations had to pass yet another ginormous supplementary budget that could have saved 20.000 people from starvation! And when you ask why, all you ever get is 'The investigation was inconclusive'. It's just about time you took some responsibility! You should count yourselves _very_ lucky that your organization doesn't seem to be accountable to the law!"

But Dr. Akagi wasn't that easily silenced – There was still one more ace up her sleeve, and one he'd hardly be able to trump. She had not wanted to as much as allude to this in public, but this was _personal_ now, at very least since the sexist joke: "No matter what you say, the fact remains that only NERV has a weapon that can defeat the enemy!"

Alas, this was just what that cocky braggadocio had been waiting for: "You mean the AT-field? Don't worry. It's only a matter of time until we develop something similar. NERV's monopoly won't last much longer."

While the twitching of Dr. Akagi's eyebrow went increasingly out of control, the crowd around them erupted into cheers and applause.

Only Misato seemed relatively chill – which lasted just about until they found the way to the wardrobe.

"THAT ARROGANT, CHAUVINISTIC PIG!

HE _DARES_ TO PLAY THE STARVING CHILDREN CARD, WHEN EVERYONE _KNOWS_ THAT ALL THESE INDUSTRIAL BIGWIGS CARE ABOUT IS TO GET THEIR OWN SLICE OF THE ANGEL EXTERMINATION CAKE! JUST _LOOKING_ AT HIS FACE MAKES ME SEETHE WITH THE URGE TO PUT MY SHOEPRINT IN IT! LIKE THIS! AND THIS! AND THIS!"

After she had scrunched up the prospect she had been given and stuffed it into the next best trashcan along with her plastic cups and a pair of USB sticks that supposedly contained further information, she had gone to vent her anger at the next best available target, namely the first locker that had crossed her field of vision, using it as a substitute for the PR-guy's face by kicking at it until it was all but demolished.

"He is just a tiny little man begging for attention; Don't give him more credit than he's worth." Dr. Akagi replied with a cold, evil smile while she fed the pages of the Jet Alone prospect to her lighter.

Misato briefly granted the locker some respite in order to turn around towards her friend.

"Then how the hell did he know about our AT-field?!" she complained, still livid.

"There is always a certain risk of information leaks."

" _Still!_ Just what is the intelligence division doing?!"

* * *

To enumerate what every single member of the division was doing would probably lead too far right now, but it probably sufficed to say that Asahina Najiko was standing at a terminal in one of the cylindrical towers adjacent to the very congress hall her two superiors were currently visiting, wearing disposable gloves, pressing a delete button before withdrawing the CD Dr. Akagi had given her earlier as soon as she had finished her work.

She was using a CD instead of an USB stick because the former was easier to break apart and throw out of a window once it had served its purpose.

Expressionlessly, Asahina observed as the glittering pieces tumbled into the dephts, becoming playthings of the wind as soon as they her fingertips, set to become just a few more pieces of plastic among the multitude of dust, debris and glass shards that constituted the abandoned capital.

* * *

In spite of all warnings, the Jet Alone demonstration was eventually commenced with, drawing the crowd of expectant businesspeople into an orderly line, into which they had gathered right at the Window to observe the spectacle, aided by an ample supply of binoculars that had been previously distributed as free advertizing gifts, complete with the company's logo.

By contrast, Misato and Ritsuko were sceptically leaning on a nearby wall, the latter bearing a strange, cold smile as she listened to the men in the control center as they booted up their robot, led by the obnoxious smartass from before. They were deploying the signaling poles, adjusting various things and calibrating others, the usual fare when you tried to precisely control every tidbit of a far too complex process.

Next, they stirred up a big fuss as they announced that they were going to activate the walking program and activate the right foot – 'Slow walking mode, forward!'

Misato found her own private relief in imagining just how chaotic and disorganized this lot would quickly come to look if they were faced with a fast, intelligent angel.

She found it hard to believe that this walking nuclear bomb actually received applause for the great, mighty deed of being able to put one foot in front of the other without falling over right away.

The idiot in the suit barely seemed to believe it himself. Judging by his exaggerated expression, he might as well been surprised that his glorified tin can worked at all.

"Wow..." Misato commented disparagingly, having snatched a pair of binoculars from somewhere after all. "Their big toy can walk! I bet the boys must be very proud of themselves."

She thew a glance at her friend, hoping that she would join in in her mockery, but the scientist's face was unexpectedly serious – of course, Misato couldn't possibly have known just what she was waiting for...

And there it came, just on time.

It all started with a small beeping signaling an error to one of the consoles.

"What's the matter?"

"...Something's wrong. The pressure in the reactor just keeps on rising!"

"Same with the temperature in the primary cooling unit!"

"Open the valves! Inject auxiliary coolant into the reactor!"

"It's not working !The pumps aren't starting up!"

"Shut down all engines! Send the emergency shutdown signal!"

"Transmission of the shutdown signal confirmed!"

"Its not accepting! The communication system isn't working!"

"Jet Alone is out of control!"

"It's coming _this way_!"

The whole congress hall filled with a turmoil of voices that could have put a beehive to shame. The guests started screaming and panicking as the salesman from before did little more than stare at the screens in impotent disbelief while his product advanced toward the building, coming closer and closer with thundering steps until the screen was no longer necessary, because the construct rudely broke down the ceiling to deposit its intrusive feet in the middle of the hall, whose occupants had fortunately been gathered at the sides, leaving a piece of the ceiling atop a few demolished chairs as it kept marching onwards, unavoidably tearing holes into everything it trampled beneath its lubberly feet.

Coughing out the dust that had had rained upon them from the crushed ceiling, Misato looked up from the edge of the 'footprint'.

"That robot's manners are just as lousy as its builders'!" she resumed the events. "Now why am I not surprised?"

Meanwhile, whatever was left of the command center was busy concluding an imminent meltdown – the eyes of the man who had just been shilling his robot's supposed safety and reliability kept getting wider and wider. "How... how can that be?" He stuttered, still not quite admitting the events to the immediate present of his reality.

"Jet Alone's central computer was programmed to handle every possible emergency! This shouldn't be happening..."

"But it _is_!" Misato sharpy affirmed from below. "What do you plan to do to prevent a nuclear catastrophe?"

"Under these circumstances... all we can do is hope for a timely emergency shutdown..."

"What's the probability for that?"

"0,00002%... It'd take a miracle..." one of the technicians admitted.

For Misato, this was impossible to accept.

"I don't know about you, but I'd rather _do something about it_ than pray for a miracle!" she announced furiously.

Her face and clothes were covered in dust and the consoles with the control panels far above her, but her commandeering tone was more than enough to establish that she was now in charge.

"Tell me how to shutdown that thing!" she demanded to know.

"We've already tried everything!" the representative retorted.

But Misato refused to take that for an answer: "No. There's _always_ the option to delete the entire programming. Give me the reset password!"

"The formatting password is top secret! There's no way I can just disclose it without a formal permit..."

"Then _**get**_ **one!** GET A MOVE ON!"

* * *

Misato, who had since transferred herself up to the command platform, observed with crossed arms as the representative fumbled his way through various phone calls.

Apparently, not a single person in that company was man enough to take responsibility for this event, which kept them getting referred them to the next best stinking rich asshole with just as little concern for human life.

"Filthy bureaucrats!" Misato hissed contemptuously.

To think that this bastard had only just dared to speak about wasted resources – he might as well be squabbling away the minutes that could cost everyone within a radius of several kilometers their lives.

Meanwhile, his robot was blissfully marching towards Atsugi to gift ten thousands of people with ugly death by atomic mushroom.

At last, the professional big mouth, now substantially humbled, appeared to have reached some sort of agreement with his superiors and put down the phone. "Alright, now we just have to wait for the courier with the written permit, and-"

"We hardly have time for such nonsense! If that thing explodes, it's all over!

Sorry, but I'm going to handle this myself. You can keep waiting for a miracle if you feel like it!"

* * *

"Hyuuga-kun?" Keeping her phone squeezed in between her head and her shoulder as she climbed out of her dress and walked past a disbelieving Dr. Akagi in the scant white shift she wore beneath, she did her best to waste as little time as possible. "...I've already informed the authorities in Atsugi. Send me Shinji-kun and Unit One in F configuration. Yes, this is an emergency."

She hung up.

Her still fully clothed friend kept shooting her skeptic looks.

As far as she could tell, Misato seemed to have concocted another of her lunatic ideas. "Stop this, Captain Katsuragi. How do you expect to have a realistic chance at stopping this robot?"

As expected, Misato's foolhardy confidence wasn't dampened in the slightest as she proceeded to tie up her hair and press a button on the wall to reveal a gray and violet hazard suit that was originally intended for maintenance-related purposes.

"Simple. I'll do it with my own two hands."

* * *

While the transport plane with EVA 01 on board was already on its way, the Jet-Alone representative was given yet another opportunity to gawk incredulously.

"This is madness! If the heat doesn't kill you, the radiation will do it! It's far too dangerous!"

"Perhaps. But if I pull it off, everyone will be safe."

Both turned towards the now useless consoles when they heard a chinking noise – One of the technicians, apparently impressed by Misato's determination, had broken his console with an emergency axe marked with bright red varnish.

"If the signal gets cut off, the entry hatch can be opened manually." he explained.

"You'll find it on the back." another technician added as he worked to disconnect various cables.

"Hope."

Misato turned around in surprise – indeed, it was the once so overconfident flack who had spoken, although his new-found spine wasn't quite solid enough to look Misato in the eye.

"Hope. That is the reset password."

"Thank you."

"My pleasure. But honestly... How do you intend to pull this off all by yourself?"

"Not at all." She smiled. "Looks like I'll have to rely on our good, old 'unreliable' human mind. And believe me, I've trusted _that_ particular unreliable human mind with a lot more than my own backside... not literally, of course."

* * *

And to think that this day had started out so nicely – When the ringing of the bell announced the onset of the second period, just as he was beginning to understand whatever Kensuke's point about those lemons had been, a handful of security personal had shown up at their classroom to escort both him and Ayanami to NERV HQ.

The rest of the class, especially his pair of friends, had briefly waved them off, and the next thing he knew, they were telling him that EVA 01 had already been loaded onto a transport plane, and that he was to grab his plug suit and board said plane immediately – Since EVA 00 was still under repairs, Ayanami was ordered to remain on standby in the geofront.

Thus, he hurried over to the hangars, where he was being expected by Hyuuga, who explained that Misato had called in about some sort of emergency, and that not even he really knew what was going on. In any case, the angel alert hadn't gone off, no one had detected any AT fields, and oh – there was a halfway enclosed compartment in the back of the plane where he could change clothes and find some benches to sit on.

It all happened far too fast for Shinji to process.

No angel alert?

Oh, no doubt, if Misato said there was an emergency, there would surely be one – she might be a slob on par with the devils who inhabited whatever part of hell overzealous neat freaks were punished in, but as soon as things got serious, she typically quit the joking – the problem was more that this deviation from the typical proceedings left Shinji with very little idea of what to expect.

There very thought of an imminent battle made Shinji tense up considerably.

Whatever battle was waiting for him down there, it was just as uncertain as ever, if not more – so far, they hadn't told him a single thing about the enemy.

Shinji tried to calm himself down by harmonizing the rhythm of his breathing with the steady motions of removing and folding his clothes.

He tried hard to remember whatever it was he had done to survive the last few battles, but all he could think of was dumb luck, coincidence and blind panic.

Luck, coincidence, panic, and Ayanami.

It wasn't just her physical stunt with the shield – just having her present made a huge difference. He supposed that having Touji and Kensuke with him had helped in a similar way, although he wasn't particularly keen on repeating that part where he almost squashed them. If only he wasn't being deployed alone. In a way, having people rely on him was a dreadful experience as well, he didn't want that risk to disappoint or fail them, but when he thought of the last battle on the summit of the the Futagoyama, or even his first regular combat experience with the fifth angel, he was tempted to conclude that he had only persevered _because_ he knew for a fact that people were relying on him.

He really didn't understand it.

All he knew for sure was that Ayanami wasn't here, and that this meant he would be alone on the battlefield once again. Wondering what she might do in this situation, Shinji put on his plug suit. Quite possibly, knowing whatever course of action she would pick would be of little use to him... he could easily match her in terms of synch ratio by now, but she had one important advantage that enabled her to do quite a few things that were impossible for him – She didn't seem to fear anything, at least not in battle.

He had noticed that she always seemed to bring his father's glasses into battle, and maybe that was part of what allowed her so be strong and sure of her actions, but when he thought of his old man, he felt anything _but_ strong and certain.

So he would have to come up with his very own way to do things one way or another.

(He didn't want to say 'battle style' or 'coping mechanism', the former implied some sort of pride or dignity, and the latter had implications that would not be productive to think about right now)

As he pressed the button on his wrist and felt the fabric of the plug suit tightly enveloping his body, he tried his best to force a serious, stoic expression onto his face.

The Third Child was ready for combat.

With nothing more left to do, he sat down and tried his best to squeeze the questions and worries out of his head until further notice.

When he finally heard nearing steps on the metallic cabin floor, he immediately looked up – and was surprised to find that it was Misato, who was wearing a form-fitting full-body suit of her own today, albeit one made of a significantly thicker material – her pronounced feminine curves were still easy to discern.

With those thick, padded soles, she looked even taller than she usually did.

She sat down on the bench opposite him, which he thought almost looked like she was going to climb into a battle machine of her own – which he soon found out wasn't all that far from the truth.

She looked directly into his eyes, and proceeded to provide a concise, apposite summary of their situation: "Our target is the nuclear-powered battle robot Jet Alone. There's a danger of meltdown in a little over five minutes. So we need to keep it away from any residential areas."

That was... quite a bit to take in from one moment to the next.

A battle robot? A _nuclear meltdown?_

"Hyuuga-kun?"

"Yes, Ma'am?"

Misato turned in the direction of the Cockpit and promptly began to hand out orders: "Get out of here as soon as you've launched the EVA. Climb to a safe altitude and circle the area until we've concluded the operation."

"Roger!"

She now addressed the Third Child: "Shinji-kun?"

"Yes?"

"Run after the target, put me down on its back and then do your best to hold it in place as long as you can."

Shinji could hardly believe his ears and stared at his guardian in alarm. "You want to _climb around_ on that thing?"

"Actually, I'm gonna climb into it." she corrected.

She couldn't possibly be serious about this!

Did she really just announce her intention to venture into a _superheated nuclear reactor_?!

Even the most mischievous of five-year-olds should be able to grasp why this was a very, very, _very_ bad idea. Radioactivity was this evil scary stuff with the shrill, yellow-black warning label associated with it – and since he was first acquainted with this important life lesson, Shinji had suffered the doubtful fortune of sitting through the occasional physics class where he'd been introduced to yummy details about how this phenomenon works and what it can do to you.

Shinji found it hard not to doubt whether she was truly sober right now.

"That's insane!"

"I know. But I still have to try it."

"But...! This is far too dangerous!"

"Don't worry, even if things go south, EVA 01 could easily withstand the explosion, and I've had it fitted with the extra-dense armor plates just to be sure. The radiation wouldn't even reach the plug."

"I don't _mean_ that! What about _you?_ All you have is a hazard suit..."

"I know that, too." She smiled as if to pass some of her temerarious boldness onto him.

"But I still have to try. Otherwise, I'd regret it forever."

Upon hearing this, Shinji's features solidified into an expression of determination – later he would come to realize that he had all but forgotten any inkling of fear for his own skin the moment he heard of Misato's mad venture... - No, the fear was still very much there, but his worry about her was a much stronger force that easily overshadowed the former.

By now, the Third Child knew well enough that trying to talk Misato out of an idea that had firmly lodged in her head was destined to be a fruitless endeavor – and let's face it, he would undoubtedly regret it just as much as her if he didn't do anything to stop this walking nuke.

Slob or no slob, he had to respect that courage of hers, her strong will to do what is right or at very least necessary when nobody else would, to use everything she had at her disposal to force paths into existence where others saw the end of the road.

If he were in her place, he would find himself held back by so many things, thwarted by fears and doubts, that is, if he would even be able to make out the faintest outline of a path to follow, but all of these things were far besides the point.

The point was that Misato was relying on him to help her with something that was important to her.

He _wouldn't_ be alone on the battlefield after all – Today, it was simply _his_ turn to be the one holding the shield, at least figuratively.

Four days ago, Misato had taken his hand into hers and shown him that he wasn't alone – and now, he would confirm to her that he wouldn't leave her alone either, that her trust in him was, at the very least, not _completely_ misplaced.

"Target sighted!" Hyuuga reported.

The time was near.

Indeed, Misato and Shinji just needed one glance out of the window to spot the ill-fated robot, marching across the landscape with its thin, white mechanical legs.

"Let's go!" Misato announced.

Shinji nodded back as a last confirmation and then, without any further delay, went to take his place inside the Evangelion while his guardian departed for her own spot between the phone booth sized fingers of the purple titan, while Hyuuga got ready to launch them without any need for further words.

Without ever really noticing a definitive moment of turnabout, they had grown to work as the interconnected pieces of a functioning team.

Holding on to the EVA's gigantic fingers, Misato gave the final launch order. At this point, he was sure that a cowardly person like he considered himself to be would never have her courage, but the least he could do was to do his part and contribute to the best of his limited ability like he had done of that mountaintop four days ago.

After he had made sure that he wasn't holding her too loosely or too tightly, he waited for the faint jolt to inform him that Hyuuga had released the last lock bolts and took the EVA's remaining not currently occupied three limbs off the rectangular frame It was contained in and let himself plunge into the depths.

EVA 01 shot towards the earth like a spear, shifting from a horizontal to a vertical orientation almost by itself, its lower half being blown backward as its pilot positioned its legs for the landing – its feet slid a few dozen meters forward and stirred up quite a bit of dust and debris, but Shinji himself was astonished how easy the landing had proven to be. He had some 'academic' knowledge of the fact that he had just descended from what by all means should be a terrifying height, but it had felt like a mere jump from a moderate height, enough to feel a dynamic firmness around the ankles, but not difficult at all, in fact, he started dashing forward out of the same motion, putting landscape behind him with an unfamiliar lightness. The battle against the blue, shape shifting angel had probably served as a sort of testing crucible from which he emerged in something of a tempered state – compared to what he went through four days ago, this here was a significantly easier task, he didn't feel nearly as tensed up and unable to think clearly as he did on the occasion of his very first EVA-related misadventure, making the EVA's feet carry out a running motion didn't even require his full, conscious focus anymore, he didn't have to think about what the feet were supposed to be doing, it was enough to focus on his goal and concentrate on reaching that damned robot and willing the distance between them to shrink further and further.

The sun over the abandoned city garnished both of the massive giants with long shadows; The robot, stomping ahead with steady, monotonous motion, throwing its limbs forward more than it was taking steps, and behind it, the EVA, with the same articulations as a human, leaning forward as it accelerated like a sprinting human would.

"I caught up!" Shinji realized, his face lighting up with a flicker of joy and weightlessness. It was working! So far, this was really going well.

"We have less than four minutes! Put me down!" Misato ordered over the intercom, this time not transmitting from headquarters, but the helmet of her hazard suit.

Shinji did his best to get a hold of the robot – and once he had a firm grasp on it, he invested every bit of strength and determination at his disposal in refusing to let go, leaning backward to make use of the EVA's immense weight, as much as that was possible without the hand that was currently occupied with transporting Misato.

His efforts were enough to keep the robot's feet stuck in place, but its arms kept carrying out their arc-like mechanical swinging – The force exerted by the motors striving to make Jet Alone's feet resume their motion was strong enough that the EVA's steadfast opposition resulted in its feet being pressed into the ground.

Needless to say, it wasn't exactly easy to keep the robot in place while carefully handling Misato at the same time, but he figured that this was as favorable an opportunity as he was going to get, so he still proceeded to carry out her order and lead the Evangelion's purple fingers over to the fidgety machine's entrance hatch.

He initial landing was successful enough, but beneath her, the robot's untiring engines continued to resist Shinji's attempts to hold it in place like an ornery hose trying to shake off its rider, and one of these jolts shook the mechanical creation before Misato had any chance to get the hatch open.

" _Misato-san!"_ Shinji cried out in shock, watching as she rolled off the mechanical giant's surface before he had any chance to do something without letting go of the robot – and witnessing how she barely managed to grab one of the metal rungs that formed one of two maintenance ladders on the back of Jet Alone and pull herself to safety.

Shinji exhaled in relief, well aware of the agitated pounding in his chest.

"Be careful..." He requested with a thin smile.

As usual, her preferred method of assuaging his worries was to make fun of them, boisterously sacrificing one of the hands she should have used to hang on to fling a V-sigh in his direction, before reaching for the opening mechanism of the main hatch.

This, at least, was a good sign, if she could still afford to act like a complete lunatic, she was probably uninjured.

What might have taken place if she had tumbled off a bit further from the ladder or reacted a split second to late didn't even bear thinking about – If that happened, he would have been lost for good...

Meanwhile, Misato herself was anything but pleased with what she found beyond the hatch – "This looks bad. I feel like I'm about to step into an oven..."

As she ventured into the figurative lion's den, the Jet Alone stubbornly refused to stay where it was, Shinji decided that it might be best if he got to the front of the robot to block its path, now that he had both arms available.

" _Stay where you are_ , damnit!" he shouted, gripping the robot's torso with both arms and every bit of strength he could pull from the EVA's muscles with his current synchronization rate.

The results were... mixed.

On the one hand, the mechanical creation did stay in place, but he could still feel the building pressure under his hands as its engines pressed onward with nowhere to release the kinetic energy they were conducting – in the end, the internal pressure near one of the shoulder parts exceeded the maximum strain the material was able to hold in, and he was greeted by a geyser-like effusion of coolant vapor – Shinji immediately covered it with one of the EVA's hands, in part because he feared that radioactivity might escape through the leak, in part to get such an obvious reminder of the situation's severity out of his sight – but the reality was that this measly automaton might very well explode at any moment with his guardian still inside.

"Misato-san... hurry..."

She was certainly trying to.

Peering at the map of the robot's innards that the big-mouthed robot salesman had left her with, she ascertained one last time that she had indeed found the right place and smashed the glass between her and the emergency mechanism designed to get the thick steel door in front of her out of her way.

Finally, a ray of hope: At least the doors were working.

Rushing inside, she immediately pulled the key-card she had been given through its designated slit on what should be the primary computer terminal to activate it.

She booted up the terminal entered the reset code, which was, as expected, met with a request for the password.

Considering herself seconds from ending this spectacle once and for all, she typed it into the terminal and pressed enter.

But her only reward consisted of the word 'ERROR' written in red letters across the screen, accompanied by one of these endlessly grating, tinitus-like beeping noises she'd had more than enough of today.

"Error? How come?"

Assuming that she might' have it the wrong key in her hurry, she repeated the imput but again, to no avail.

"No doubt... someone must have tampered with the programming... This was deliberate sabotage..."

Misato barely had the time to formulate her conclusion when a sharp jolt went through the metallic giant, potent enough for Shinji to notice it, or at very least the much increased rush of vapor spraying out of the leak. Alarmed, he tried to cover the source of the escaping coolant with both hands, but it was no use – The rising pressure simply found itself another way out, shooting another jet of vaporized coolant out of the robot's back.

The last salvos of urgent warnings resounded both in the congress hall and inside the robot itself – They all understood that it could be too late at any minute now, and Misato, in particular, realized that she had only one option left: "Looks like I'll have to do this the old fashioned way. It's sink or swim now."

Given that she was currently in the main control room next to the reactor itself and had already eaten a nasty dose of radiation for that 'privilege', she decided that she might as well make use of it and moved to physically push the prone control rods back into the reactor. They were all part of single mechanism, so there was a good chance that all of them would automatically follow if she just managed to push one of them past the line that signified the automatic insertion of the others.

Misato pushed and pushed, leaning all her weight against the control rod, but it didn't seem to budge a single millimeter... or maybe it was.

Just a little, not enough, it was like having to push the weight of the entire wall, the mechanism was certainly not designed for manual operation.

Her teeth gritted, Misato kept pushing without respite until her muscles protested – if she let up, the rods might just slide back out, and even if they didn't, it was quite obvious that she didn't have a second to spare, a fact that was equally obvious to Shinji, who reacted with appropriate horror as further leaks seemed to burst open on all seams and articulations of the robot to expel further coolant vapor into the atmosphere – it was quite apparent that every single bit of coolant inside Jet Alone had reached its boiling point and the volume it had readily occupied in its liquid state was far too small to contain all of it in its gaseous form – and the more of it escaped, the more of it pressed against the robot's hull from within, the less there was to stabilize its core of uranium rods. Even if the robot didn't burst apart on him, it was only a while until the contents of the uranium liquified, melted their way through the metal shell encasing them and disappeared into the ground to disseminate their death-bringing poison.

"Misato-san, get out of there!" he exclaimed, but Misato didn't think of escaping – if that robot were to explode, any attempt to get away from the blast zone would be futile at this point. "Move already, you useless piece of junk!" she cursed in exertion.

She could feel the heat that had been oppressive to begin with raising even further, squeezing the sweat out of her pores, and she knew that the radioactivity levels were most likely following suit.

Just a little bit further, and she should trigger the automatic latching mechanism, just a little bit...

Jet Alone's hull groaned under the strain from it's internal pressure, even with more and more geysers of coolant shooting out of it.

Shinji became all too aware how small and fragile a single human being was in this kind of situation – She was currently in the center of something could quite possibly depopulate this entire swatch of land, and there was nothing he could do to get to her without risking to set off the blast... Misato...

He couldn't think of anything other than her and how she would be blown into oblivion if this damned tin can were to explode.

"Misato-san!" he cried in horror, with tears in the corners of his wide open eyes.

Back in the congress hall, they were already expecting the meltdown to occur at any moment, and although Misato was pushing with all her strength, the control rods that had been their last hope refused to budge for that last strip of distance that would've meant their salvation – In short, everyone involved was far too preoccupied to pay attention to the screen of the primary computer terminal when the error notice disappeared and a few rows of undefined numbers flashed across its screen instead – Misato found herself tumbling to the floor when the control rods she had been leaning on unexpectedly gave way and slid into the wall and the reactor beyond it.

Exhausted as she was, Misato immediately faced up to follow the rods with her eyes – Indeed, they had slid in.

But would they still do any good at this stage?

Fortunately, yes.

It worked, probably a lot better than a supposedly out of control machine should be able to.

The red emergency lights deactivated and left the inside of the robot to an unreal green.

Observed by Shinji's uncertain eyes, Jet Alone orderly shut down, the vapor jets ceased, the antennas were retracted and when Shinji let go of it, its legs lost a fair bit of their tension now that the engines weren't pressing them onwards.

"SHE DID IT!" one of the technicians first dared to shout.

The congress hall filled with a storm of rejoicing and exultation, there wasn't a single person who didn't at least sigh in relief, even the PR-guy had a genuine smile on his face.

Only Ritsuko was leaning on the wall without displaying any major gestures.

"...that madwoman..."

So, the day was saved and the population of the surrounding few kilometers had nothing to fear anymore – the colossal silhouettes of both the robot and the cyborg had fallen silent, and only one question remained in the minds of the onlookers: Had the foolhardy loon whom everyone in the surrounding area ostensibly owed their lives to actually survived her venturesome deed?

"Misato-san?!" Shinji yelled into the intercom, almost hysterically. "Are you allright? Misato-san!"

"Well, to be honest, I've really had better days..." she spoke from the human creation's dark interior.

She was leaning against a wall and beginning to feel the effects of the radiation now that the adrenaline was wearing off.

Shinji was deeply relieved.

For all her laziness and all their occasional arguments, he really wouldn't know what to do without her.

"Oh I... I'm so glad you're allright, Misato-san! So glad... I can't believe you actually did it! I underestimated you! It's truly a miracle...!"

As much as Misato appreciated the fact that she was still in one piece and that any danger of radiation-related calamities had been awaited, she was now pretty certain that she didn't deserve all of the credit...

* * *

"So, how are you feeling?" Hyuuga asked, concerned.

"Better. I don't mind if you concentrate on flying... If it puts your mind at rest, I do plan to take a little detour to sickbay once we arrive at headquarters."

Misato, whose hair was still sticking to her sweaty face, had since disposed of the helmet belonging to her hazard suit and laid down on one of the benches in the compartment where they had also held their mission briefing.

Although she was positively exhausted, she took great care to placate both her assistant and her young ward a warm, but tired smile. "Don't worry boys, bad weeds grow tall."

Even now, she felt responsible to make sure 'her boys' didn't worry themselves too much.

Shinji however, was kneeling at her side, still dripping wet with LCL because he had only just climbed out of his entry plug. Today, it was his turn to hold _her_ hand.

* * *

"The recovery of unit one was successfully concluded. On-site analysis revealed that next to no radiation was leaked. Aside from Captain Katsuragi's intervention, everything proceeded just as planned." Dr. Akagi discribed, matter-of-factly, like this kind of hazardous sabotage was her everyday business.

Ikari, who was slouching over his desk as usual, spoke to address both the scientist and Asahina from the security division who was also standing infront of the afore mentioned piece of furniture after they had finished their report.

"Good work. Asahina-kun? You are dismissed."

The woman in black exuded a quiet "Yes, Sir." and left the room with little production of sound, all the while slipping her hand into the left pocket of her Blazer.

It was only when the automatic door closed behind her that she pulled out what her thin, spider-leg fingers had been grasping and eyed it with a brief, dispassionate gaze.

It was an old photograph, slightly crumpled at the ending, displaying three people at what appeared to be a wedding, although unassuming young girl of fifteen or sixteen years could easily have been overlooked in favor of the coruscant newlyweds – she was purpusefully standing aside to let them take the center of the picture, a plain and homely young thing with two shoulder-lenght braids of dark brown hair, clothed in an unostentaneous combination of a long-sleeved black blouse and a long plaited skirt in the same color as if to help her fade into the background – despite the festive ocassion, she did not seem particularly joyfull.

The only thing about her that might have stuck out were her youthfully large dark green eyes, allthough this wasn't enough to keep the happy couple from overshadowing her.

The groom, in particular, wasn't helping her cause with that shoddy dark red suit he was wearing, as if he were purposely intending to stick out like a sore thumb – most of the people working at NERV HQ, however, might have found his face much more eye-catching than his getup, for they might have felt that they were looking an an older version of the Third Child. The groom was probably twice his age at last, but the resemblance was all the more striking – Very few other people on this chain of islands had this sort of deep-set mindnight-blue eyes. If it weren't for the age difference, they could have been alike enough to get confused, allthough a closer look gradually revealed the disparities – His skin was darker, his face more rugged, the part in his hair and the few strands that fell into his forehead were arranged somewhat distinctly despite the overall resemblance of their hairstyles, and even if the young EVA pilot might very well have some further growth spurts ahead of him, it was unlikely that he would ever reach this man's type of tall, broad-shouldered stature, and last but not least, the groom's body language and overall demeanor were very different from the Third Child's: He had his right arm tightly wrapped around the hips of his beautiful young bride, not just as a predatory gesture to mark her as taken, but like he had no intention of ever letting go, slinging a frivolous grin at the camera.

His new wife was the exact opposite of him, slender, long limbed and of pulchritudinous shape, her fair skin barely contrasting with her elaborate white dress – and this was all that could be said about her, since the part of the photograph that corrresponded to her face had been scratched with a thin, sharp object byond the point of recognition.

Asahina shot a cold glare teeming with old wrath at the picture, then the door behind her, then back at the picture, and stuffed it back to where she had pulled it from after meticulously folding it twice.

Then, she left.

On the other side of the door, Dr. Akagi had finished yet another report, one that hadn't been intended for the other woman's ears: "I have already requested the related document from Golghata Base. I think that I'll be able to present you with a method of locating our little problem pretty soon."

"Very well. Either way, continue with the regular search efforts for now."

"That goes without saying. But all of that aside... you've only just returned. Don't you feel like... doing something a little more... _relaxing_ after the long journey?"

Ikari felt briefly tempted to sigh, but concluded that it wasn't worth it.

Without the slightest reaction, he remained sitting in his usual pose.

"Not now. I will see you at wenty-two hours in the usual place."

"Yes, Sir."

* * *

But as exciting and instructive as it might be to participate in an action-movie like attempt to stop a nuclear meltdown and marvel at Misato's heroic deeds as she did the same, the next morning, the typical everyday proceedings of the Katsuragi household went on as usual, and this involved Shinji being the first to rise and put on his uniform, and the only one to bother with providing himself and the other inhabitants with anything resembling breakfast.

He had long since recognized any attempt to get Misato to stick to their initial already pretty unfair distribution of tasks as a long cause, and he felt sorry for the resident penguin who hadn't done anything to deserve the piles of dirt and unpalatable sludge that would result from him refusing to do Misato's work.

So he surrendered himself to his fate, filled up PenPen's food dish and preemptively placed a can of cool beer on the table to await the bird's mistress.

He might as well acquire himself some cookbooks, if he was ever going to eat anything other than toast and junk food in this house. But for today, he chose to content himself with munching on the usual piece of toast as he pondered today's obligatory weird dream.

Lately, they seemed to be... accumulating, almost as if they meant to draw his attention to something, perhaps something that was still just about to happen, something major... this night, the dream had turned upon itself four times in a row as he rolled around in his bed, at times intersecting or switching between each other, and there had been that other vision that was ostensibly distinct from the one's he'd had so far, but still carried that ame telltale tinge of déjà-vû with it that had accompanied the others... he had seen himself standing in some vague, undefined location, beneath a bright blue sky, surrounded by a circle of familiar people: Misato, Ayanami, Touji, Kensuke, Dr. Akagi, the class representative, even PenPen, Hyuuga and the other two bridge technicians – and even people that he hadn't recognized and had only shadowy recollection of, but hadn't triggered any bells of unfamiliarity or newness within the context of the dream – there was a young man with a face full of stubble, for example, or this vaguely familiar looking tall woman who had been standing next to his father, although he still wasn't sure whether the person standing at his side wasn't simply Ayanami, whose height his chaotic subconcious had gotten mixed up somehow. The actual 'plot' of the dream didn't involve that much happening, just all of them congratulating him for something he couldn't really remember, but it had all felt really meaningful at the moment, like those words were so much more. Maybe it was his birthday or something? In any case, he distantly recalled words of gratitude and parting afterward, but it was basically over at that point. The other four visions had taken place exactly like they usually did, red streak of blood on the sky and all. The first two had continued the motif that seemed to have emerged in the last few days, each of them presenting him a pretty girl that was unfamiliar and yet not, none of which he had recognized or showed up a second time, the first had been fairly tall, if not as much as the one in the pink plug suit, had long, raven hair and wore thin-framed, round glasses, the other had short, reddish-brown hair and showed up in a drenched white dress that betrayed much of her youthful body, claiming to be his girlfriend. The third vison also followed that pattern, but once again presented him with a translucently-blue ocean instead of a red one, perhaps to match the azure neckerchief of the young woman that woke up next to her – unlike the others, she was not a teenager around his age, but in her early twenties, although her petite stature and cheerful personality had relativized that somewhat. While she had a bright disposition and soon implored him to consider how good it was that 'all of it' – whatever it was that had taken place to make the barren wasteland around them into what it was now – was finally over now, there was something about her that kept her from completely opening up in his presence, a slight tension in her body language, a clam component in her cute, girlish voice, a heavy shadow that she couldn't quite conceal behind the sparkles in her eyes, despite her conscious efforts to keep it down – it might not be something that might be noticed right away, but somehow, he knew where to look for it, and it bore a terrifying resemblance to fear. And there was another thing... he was pretty certain that he was seeing this particular waterfall of long, brown hair for the first time, but there were some parts about her face that looked ridiculously familiar. Not even in a distant, ominous meaningful way, but the most profane variant possible, like something that stared him in the face every day at school. Something about those dependable-looking, chocolate brown eyes, her nose and her cheekbones, just generally most of the lower part of her face.

More curiously still, despite the very obvious sensory shape she presented to him in sight sound and touch, something felt at odds with the idea that she should be older than him. The idea of it tasted far-fetched at wrong even in the salty, bloody wasteland of his dream-scape, even though it should have been he other way around – the only way he was ever going to be younger than her was in the manner of someone who was long dead, but remained forever frozen in memory as they were on their last day, like... yes, exactly like an older sibling who had died at a young age, so long ago that the younger ones had reached the adulthood they never got to live, and that particular idea tasted like irony and bitterness and gentian roots, as far as ideas could even be said to posses something like a smell and taste...

In the fourth dream, however... he woke up next to a _boy,_ drained and exhausted from the storm on intensity brought on by the variety of mad visions and emotions he had been put through, for so long he had consciously noticed that he was dreaming and unsuccessfully tried to wake himself again and again as he was being jerked around in these waves of images and feelings like an elastic rubber ball thrown by some ambitious god – He should no longer even have cared whose face he would next have the misfortune to glimpse, but he _did_ , and erupted into tears as much from joyful bliss as from utter depletion.

And the other boy in the sand, whose tired smile suggested that he was just every bit as worn out as Shinji himself, just reached out one pale arm, weakly touched his cheek with a kind worshiping tenderness, and spoke a single sentence with a voice like an ancient lyre:

"I forgive you."

Fortunately – or was it? – the sound of a door opening distracted him before he could continue musing on whatever all of this was supposed to imply about him – his attention was quickly occupied by the doorway and the half-naked woman standing in it, as usual, unkempt, grungy and unabashedly scratching her stomach area.

She then proceeded with the usual ritual consisting of a half-hearted greeting, slurping down her can of beer and celebrating her new state of ridiculous drunkness with an exaggerated cry of joy.

"Weeell..." she continued in sing-song, suddenly manifesting an almost traumatizing cheerfulness now that she was properly drunk and on her way to grab yet another beer can. "It's shi-sha-shower time! Have you seen any clean bras and panties laying around somewhere?"

Shinji didn't bother with an answer, instead settling for a disgruntled to distinctly irked expression as he hurried to get his breakfast over with and escape her oozing aura of sticky, palpable _embarrassing_. Sure, when it came to preserving peace on earth, she could at least _pretend_ to be a reasonable, professional adult, but apparently, she didn't deem her presence worth bothering to behave at least a little more presentably than your average hobo – the renewed knowledge that she was very much capable to look cool and heroic if she wanted to just made it all worse.

So it came that the Third Child still looked visibly displeased by the time Touji and Kensuke showed up to pick him up, which quickly managed to turn their widely grinning faces _("GOOD MORNING, IKARI-KUN!")_ into expressions of confusion.

"Good morning..." he replied, not completely successful at concealing his sour mood. "I'm leaving now!"

"Have a nice day~~!" it promptly resounded from the direction of the kitchen where a particular half-naked woman refused to divert any effort to concealing her pretty overt state of drunkenness.

Shinji was anything but overjoyed and made sure to get out of there before he ended up being subjected to any more public humiliation, although such an event might just have made his friends comprehend why he didn't share their enthusiasm.

When asked whatever he'd been escorted out for on the day before, he proceeded with a rough description of what had transpired. As usual, their reactions remained very predictable:

"So we can now again bask in the light of another day thanks to the heroic of efforts of the glorious miss Misato~~ You should have told us right away!"

"Misato-san is really impossibly cool~~!"

"And so sexy~~!"

"That's what I thought at first, but you have _no idea_ how she acts at home!" Shinji openly complained with a degree of sincerity that would have been unthinkable just a few weeks ago. "Once she takes off her uniform, she's nothing but a frowsy, lazy slob, and really, really uncool... and she doesn't seem to have the slightest bit of shame about acting that way right in front of me!"

"Wow! I really envy you." Kensuke stated, defying logic hard enough to make Shinji stop in his tracks. Didn't he just go out of his way to explain how living under Misato's roof was anything _but_ enviable?

"Sorry, but I really don't get why you would say that..."

A sentiment that Kensuke seemed to share from the opposite side of the mirror - "You really _are_ a baby, Ikari!"

"Hell yes!" Touji added, crushing Shinji's hopes that at least he could be expected to sport a remotely reasonable reaction.

"Explain."

Kensuke smiled. "She's showing you a side of herself that no one else gets to see. That's very much like family. She wants you to see her like she really is."

Swiftly floored, Shinji looked at his friends with unintended astonishment.

He had never really looked at it this way – there he was all along, wondering if he was any more than a job assignment to her, when the answer had been right under his nose.

A relieved, hearty smile spread on the boy's face as he hurried to follow his friends on their way to school.

The sun shone, the birds sang, and Shinji marveled as a a heady sense of happiness permeated his body like the warm daylight on his skin.

Before he had come to Tokyo-3, he wouldn't have thought that feeling alright could be this pleasant. Surely he would have stuck to his suspicious that this was one of these vastly overrated things about which the reports were too greatly exaggerated to match what could be expected exist in this world, at least according to his experiences so far.

He still couldn't quite say why he had stayed here, and he no longer had any illusions that this would be a question for which he would soon have an answer, let alone one that was remotely comfortable. He had, at the very least, decided that he could ask himself later – right now, he wanted to be on this piece of the sidewalk, he needed to be in this body to feel and experience the sounds of the morning and the outline that could be felt as the breeze tugged at its edges.

It wasn't like he had suddenly started to believe that he would definitely master the tasks ahead, or even manage to succeed at all, but it would sure be nice if he _did_ pull it off in the end... not that he thought of the events that had transpired as any less unpleasant than he did the day before, but they had led to other things, other meetings, other images, thoughts and experiences that had piled up exponentially over the last few weeks... EVA 01, Neo Tokyo-3, Touji, Kensuke, Ayanami, Misato... even his father as he spoke the words 'Proceed at your own discretion.'.

Having all of this was... kind of nice.

Shinji never had any of these things before, none of what he had managed to scrape together for himself in spite of all the adversity, like a weed breaking through asphalt – A purpose, a home, a pair of loyal friends he could turn to, somebody to long for, a semblance of family, and even a goal to strive towards...

Until now, he had always been all by himself, aimlessly going through the motions as he drifted through days, months and years.

But not anymore.

If there was anything remotely encouraging he could say about the imminent journey he had just hoisted upon himself, then it was that he wouldn't be alone on this path.

So it came to pass that Shinji finally reached the decision to, at the very least, give this whole world-saving business a good try.

What made him do it would remain yet another of the many omissions, unspoken secrets, and ambiguities which populated his new workplace, but much, much later, he would arrive at the uneasy admission that the moment he held his father's letter in his hands, he had first felt something that he had never known before in his old life, but had offered him numerous chances to get acquainted – the sweet, sweet fragrance of hope.

* * *

Silence so complete and abject it could only exist where nothing living plotted its ending in all of its dominion.

Expanses of cleft swathes of land made of black, burnt-out rock, the occasional reminders of civilization poking out here or there, among then rigid, cross-shaped monoliths resembling Evangelions in varying states of destruction, although they didn't resemble any particular model Shinji would have recognized at this point... and far beyond, yet visible right above their peaks were the lights of the milky way, too many to ever be counted, so numerous they just melted into one single, diffuse streak covering the blood-stained blackness above, sparkling brighter than they ever did in hundreds of years, now that all artificial lights that could have drowned them out had been extinguished.

In the landscape below, chunks of steel and concrete could be glimpsed, horizontal, uprooted scraps of buildings too far removed from, or even recognizable for the purpose they had once served to even be called ruins, but their sight paled before the very worst details in this picture of desolation, the apparently randomly scattered pieces of a woman's torn flesh, petrified evidence of its once half-melted, now bizarrely frozen daliesque state, flesh melting off bones, bones bending like rubber where their obdurate should have broken, tatters of a corpse that dwarfed all mountains, pieces of a woman that covered the eyes of the earth as it wept. That piece at the outermost corner of his vision, he thought, was an arm; The flesh-mound in the distance, straddled by the ocean, looked like one half of the head.

Only the red, red ocean bore any resemblance to the world Shinji was used to, and all it did was let its waves sweep back and forth in a long tethered motion, enclosed into itself and content with the space it occupied – By now, he hardly even needed to open his eyes to describe every single corner of this wasteland, he could say, with quite a bit of confidence that was still useless to reassure him, that every tiniest facet of this place had burnt itself into the squishy inside of his skull – and right upon seeing it, he could assuredly conclude that he was dreaming _yet again_ , there was not even a delay anymore.

He just hoped that he would be having one of the less unpleasant versions tonight.

One of those visions where he was here with someone else – Yes, he did want company, but when he thought of it, he was a lot less sure of _what_ kind of company he wanted his subconscious to summon up that he had been on most of his visits to this realm – just a while ago, he could have thought of _all kinds_ of things he was lacking, but by now, he had found many of those in a place where he didn't have to retreat into his dreams to find them. People that would walk through life at his side weren't so scarce anymore as to be like water in a desert, that he would be in this desert here, occupied with the activity of yearning for them. In that sense, he could almost grant himself a thin, refreshing layer of leeway in the oppressive humid stench of this place, a measure of curiosity about just what might be awaiting him this time, like it had become a pastime experiment and less a clawing for sustenance – someone _new_ would be nice. Something fresh and virgin that he hadn't seen before... how aboutt something exciting, something a little more challenging for once?

Shinji could hardly believe that his heart could even harbor such a wish, but in the end, this were his dreams, and they would be over soon enough. After what he had lived through until today, he felt _ready_ to be challenged, perhaps not exactly shouting for the universe to bring on the next level, because that, he would never be, and not feeling such vainglory nor ever thinking of seeking it was perhaps one of the few points where he might have had an insufficiency _less_ than what you commonly label as a hero, but he felt that if challenges could not be avoided, he wouldn't mind it if they came now, so he could go back to his quiet and his peace when they were gotten over with.

So he opened his eyes, and as always, his first glimpse was the only firmly-entrenched constant in his place, an ever-solemn apparition of a girl standing on the surface of the water.

As in every iteration, she would just stand there and stare down at him like an angry ghost, and left him struggling to explain how this image of a person who looked like Ayanami, dressed like Ayanami and took a posture that was all too common for her could fail to trigger any sense that it _was_ her, to the point that he found himself lamenting the difference where there was none to be discerned, curled up like a tiny, unnoticeable dimension beneath height, depth and breadth, but still enough to feed his nigh delusional certainty that this faint specter neither would, not should mesh with his thoughts and ideas of the girl who had smiled at him when he came to her rescue in an event whose age had, at the current point in time, almost reached a week, and as he still pondered why she defied comprehension, the transient image dispelled itself before his very eyes as it had done many times before, enough for him to expect for it to happen and even wait it out before deciding to move, although his motion of sitting up lend into one of looking around for her to see if she had left any trace, a sentimental endeavor half-rooted in habit that he had long known to be futile for quite a while now, but it felt like a question of breaking a promise to not do for her what he would do for anyone else and not assume that she had disintegrated into thin air, and besides, the best way in which to pay her basic respect that he could think of right now, not that he had any delusion that his inconsistent fumblings were of any more use to him than a rain dance around a suspiciously human-like personification of its power to replenish and aliment the land was as a 'thank you' to the clouds, but these weren't the target of his actions, and even if he might get accused of just wanting to calm his own selfish mind, it just didn't feel right to say nothing at all.

He, too, accused himself, the curse of awareness made him feel these reasonable doubts very keenly, and knowingly used his newfound propensity to hope to dearly wish they were unwarranted, perhaps shamefully – the word _prayer_ , however, was probably the one furthest from his current thoughts, first because he had never believed in this kind of thing, and second because he if he had come back here, then only because he was sufficiently convinced that he didn't want to become a part of an enveloping goddess' Christ-Body even if such a thing could be made reality.

Some of those who wouldn't boil with a wish to hack off his head for what he had done might come to call him a savior, and this was probably what the self-appointed holy mother had in mind, but as far as the only truth of his own was concerned, it was his debt to know that he was at most the lowly Magdalene, unworthy to even spill his endless tears on the true star of his hope, unmistakably a sinner, and yet the one she had come to chose. She had granted him a request alright, but he hadn't asked her to be his goddess – She could have been everyone's goddess, but only he could be her chosen one, and in their mingling conceive what would become the zygote of a brand new world that was yet beginning to emerge from its amniotic fluid, and yet, was already destined to become just as tainted as the union that had brought forth this second genesis, their star-crossed embrace in the heart of a dying world.

And this was nothing more than what he had wanted – his taint was his taint, his own rock would be his own business, and he would gladly roll it all the way back to the top of the mountain, this time, bitterly weighed and deliberately chosen.

This meant, of course, that now was the point in time where he usually realized that he had been staring past the silhouette of a girl, and indeed, there she was, the first inhabitant of this new Eden – Just like the first one, it stank of various organic molecules like it hadn't done for countless billions on years, and like all previous creations, it reached its pinnacle with a man, a woman and a promise waiting to be broken – Until now, he had served his exile in perfect silence, but now, it was his turn to bite into the fruit and chew it hard, for only when the first words between two separate people would be spoken and everything he had attempted to banish from this world had made its return that the final sanction would truly be undone.

And what an opulent harvest the foliage did reveal, of the ripest, most tempting red that his primate ancestors had developed that extra green receptor for, bright, yet deep like the color of blood and the red, red sea – a girl wrapped in a thin peel of plug suit rubber and a occasionally, layers of bandages that curiously seemed to mirror the pattern of injuries Rei had sported upon their first meeting. Beyond all doubts, she had what TV, magazines and other popular media would describe as a perfect body, but it wasn't Misato's kind of warm, playful sex-appeal or Rei's ethereal, unearthly beauty that would have been fit for a greek goddess, but the extremely alluring, provocative yet coldly unattainable type of attractiveness one would associate with a model or an actress, and she might as well have been one: She was extremely thin, there was not a single gram of misplaced fat anywhere on her body, her slim waist obviously a product of the same rigorous, nigh self-flagellating discipline that must have created her long, athletic limbs, which were probably covered in the same light, yet rosy skin that was visible on her inhumanly spotless plastic barbie doll face, framed by long, lustrous hair in a baked martian red, whose every dainty motion gave rise to new waves of effervescent lust – Her breasts were even smaller than Rei's an were shaped more mounds than hemispheres and barely filled out the protective plates embedded into her plug suit, but it was precisely this half-revealed and easily uncoverable state that made them all the more titillating.

Her eyes, however, were cold, icy blue and wide open to brim like those of a dead fish.

Now there wasn't a single language on this planet that could have described the impulse that overcame Shinji when he saw this girl. He was shocked at his own thoughts, twitching and screaming within the prison of a head that wasn't completely his own in this dream world. He was so repulsed and disgusted that he could have thrown up right on the spot, but the vomit just wouldn't come.

In its place came abyssal hatred, cold as liquid nitrogen – This girl, this complete stranger... he wanted to _do_ something to her, to make her _hurt_ , he was completely overtaken by a tar-like, black urge to sully and depredate her, to _touch_ her no matter whether she wanted or not, fuck her, fuck whatever _she_ wanted!

He wanted to mangle her, to sink his very own teeth into her flesh until he could feel the salty-metal taste of her blood all over the inside of his mouth.

He felt his tears building up below his eyes – she _did_ come after all.

She had come here, because she had need of him, because she had use for him, because she had spend all that time pining for his presence as much as he had languished in hers, because she had noticed the absence his voice in the endless choir of the millions and missed it enough to follow after him – And yet, she had always rejected him and reveled, even _basked_ in every ounce of pain she had caused him, spewed forth lies in the shapes of both words and kisses from her pretty, pink-lipped little mouth that always seemed ready to lick up his blood like it was the nectar of her life, and always, _always_ weaponized that shell of hers to taunt him, until he had finally gotten himself what kept withholding, to the sight of her vain, shallow ornamental artifice of a husk.

_Enough._

With a sudden, fluid motion of his arms, his hands constricted around her neck and pressed down with all of their force.

He would give all of her counterfeit gaudiness to the maggots, her smooth, slight neck, the her perky breasts, the long, speckles calves, every single one of her pavonine, vainglorious wonders, so he would never, ever, _ever_ have to see any of them _ever_ again.

 _Now_ she came to him? _Now_ she dared to throw herself beside him, like she had done it before, to ask for the comfort and consolation she had always coldly denied him?

She had once told him that she wouldn't want anything to do with him even if he were the last man on the whole damn planet, and now it was _her_ who had sought him out after the end of everything, and instead of delivering on her own damn promise, she came to him, out of pure self-serving necessity, and voicelessly asked for a love that wasn't even worth a few damn words to her, and never had been.

_Oh no, you don't!_

Not this time, not ever again.

Devoid of mercy or pity, Shinji clenched down on all the little blood vessels and air passageways of this supposed stranger, greedy to squeeze the very last and dying breath from everything he'd ever dreamed. Now it was his turn to repay her with the same cruelty she had mocked him with when he still would have given everything to be with her forever, taking his sweet time to take his revenge for every ever so tiny quantum of pain she had ever inflicted on him.

…wait a minute, 'everything he'd ever dreamed'?

'be with her forever'?!

What... what exactly was he even doing right now?!

He... he didn't even know this person, for crying out loud, and neither did he recognize himself.

Why on earth would he _ever_ -

There was something warm on his cheek.

The girl's bandaged hand, which had slowly yet fatefully been lifted up while he was too lost in his intensity to notice before was now softly sliding over his cheek in what was almost a caress, just like he had wished it would time and time again.

His grip loosened.

At first, this was all that happened, but then, softly yet violently, Shinji broke down into sobs and tears like a collapsing house of cards.

His very soul just flat out imploded, leaving only a wretched bag of meat.

There was just nothing left of him anymore.

Everything that had once resided in this form, given it structure, substance or drive had been smashed, bashed in and thoroughly broken.

He was just completely and utterly dilapidated.

His tears dropped onto the stranger's face, who icily darted her dead eyes over to his face without the slightest hint of emotion, and in the coldest possible voice a human throat could produce without violating the laws of physics, she spoke two words:

" _How disgusting."_

Like a masterfully crafted sword wielded by a righteous executioner, those words pierced Shinji's soul, his dream and his sleep – Swathed in sweat, he sat up, his whole body shaking and refusing to be calmed.

He felt terrified, somehow, of the very room he was in, its very corners like a claustrophobic constriction bursting with used-up air, its very walls dripped with a sense of menace, like the space itself was haunted, rightfully possessed by something that wasn't him, whose heavy, suffocating dampness of the summer night weighed on his chest.

He felt he needed to get out of here, out to where he could have air, out of the place where space belonged to her, was steeped in her, whatever 'her' was supposed to mean, in his internal chaos of half-awake agitation, all manner of words became little more than unprocessed strings of sounds.

Driven by a force he didn't understand, she jumped from his bed and stormed from the room in a frenzy of clumsy, undignified haphazardness and a diffuse name forming a suffocating lump in his throat. In hindsight, he was very lucky that he didn't stumble over his own feet, when he pulled the door open, slammed it shut behind his back with a defensively-blocking posture where he leaned his weight against the closed door forming a brief intermediate before he continued his confused shreds of flight and the ugly aftertaste sticking to his palate.

Afterward, he couldn't say why he would seek to find safety there of all places, but his agitated pace continued until he found his way to the mostly empty, dark an dusty room where Misato kept her rarely used cleaning supplies.

It was here, between boxes and brooms, and bizarrely even more constricted space than in the room he had bolted from, that his loud breathing and throbbing heart could finally be persuaded to calm down.

_What a singularly horrific nightmare._

He couldn't help but shudder from head to toe, in part to keep his blood from curdling from the sheer horror of the still very confusing experience.

For starters, _why_?

Why would he have this nightmare now, when everything seemed to have been on its way up so far?

He didn't understand. He hadn't understood this all along, nothing at all.

Why did he have to experience this of all sudden, when he felt like he was on his way to 'solve' those dreams, but now, he'd been struck with this version so much worse than even most the earlier ones, which made it all too clear that he was still very far from figuring out just how those dreams worked or why they plagued him, what they were... trying to tell him, if such wordings were even applicable to the world he now lived in.

Even though he still felt a distinct shiver when he entered back into the shadows and found himself hesitating to close the door, Shinji had no choice but to get back to his room and try to get back to sleep once he'd calmed himself as well as he could.

Tomorrow (or today? He had no idea if it was already past midnight or not) was a Saturday, but from the looks of it he would still have to get up early, since Dr. Akagi had just compiled a new combat simulation for him, based on the freshly-evaluated data from his battle with the latest angel and thus requested his presence at NERV HQ so she could spent almost all day testing and refining it.

Shinji sighed.

At least, Misato had promised him some sort of compensation in the shape of a so-called 'surprise trip' on the day after. He was even allowed to bring Touji and Kensuke, who, according to Misato, would 'absolutely love this!', which Shinji didn't particularly doubt given that Misato herself would be present for them to marvel at. Still, Shinji couldn't help being the slightest bit disappointed that Ayanami would be unable to come along with them – apparently, she was required to stay behind in Tokyo-3 in case an angel attacked while they were away – Given that it would be a week after the last battle, the next enemy could technically show up at any given moment, and none of them could say when.

Shinji sighed.

Yes, the distance between him and the First Child had surely shrunk after the last battle, but since then, he hadn't had much in the way of a real conversation with her, like nothing had changed at all...

Or well, _almost_ nothing.

He kept noticing the minute, but telling fact that she would now usually depart with the words 'See you later' as opposed to her earlier 'farewell', most recently when she'd been ordered to stay behind at headquarters while he was being informed that he would be sent to deal with Jet Alone.

And that, at the very least, left room ...for a little bit of hope...

**Act I: [THE END]**


	18. ~Elaborate Act II Preview~

In the first act, our unlikely protagonist found himself unexpectedly confronted with an offer he couldn't refuse and the heavy burden of a strenous, horrifying task that seemed night-impossible, especially for someone as ostensibly unsuited for heroism and warfare as himself. Even still, he presevered and managed to not only survive, but even build himself a little habor of his own - As time progressed, he came to realize that while the people in his new surroundings surely made huge, at times unquestionaly unreasonable demands of him, they also offered him the opportunity to find something he didn't have in his quiet, but aimless previous life, such as a way to contribute to society, a home, new friends, a person to yearn for and admire, even a semblance of family and a goal to work towards- In the light of all these new experiences, Shinji Ikari finally accepts what is shaping up to be his destiny-

\- but just like when he first made the decision to climb into EVA 01, signing up for the job was just a sneak preview of the grueling trials and tribulations he will have to master on his way. Will he actually be able to presevere through the neverending, ever more creative attacks of the angels and defend his newfound significant others, even when ominous conspiracies show themselves to be stirring in the dark, along with something even more fundamentally terrifying that is about to raise the stakes even higher than Shinji ever thought possible? And how will the quiet world he has build for himself shift and mutate when it is shaken up by various new allies and enemies alike, all of whom comfront him with their strong personalities, unique perspective and the new experiences they have to offer?

This, and much more awaits you in **Act II: Rising Action: [You do (not) connect]** , a story about many unique individuals, and how they come together to master the impossible.

Yes, the title 'You can (not) advance' is being saved for later... In any case, the second act will be substantially longer than the first one and contain significantly more original content, while you might recognize some of it as expanded/beefed up versions of some of your favorite episodes (occassionally not in the order you'd expect them in) and EVA-related video games (particularly the introductory episodes of everyone's favorite redhead) others will be only loosely based on a few canonical details that provided the inspiration and otherwise be creations of my own sick brain. The current plan (which, admittedly, has shifted and expanded in the past but is, at least right now, not expected to undergo any more drastic changes) envisions the second arc (which is, in fact, still ongoing in the original version) to consist of multiple sub-storyarcs, for which you now get a little preview:

0) 00: *Prologue – _(featuring an Illustrious newcomer to the pilot roster!)_

1) (01-08): [SECOND CHILD HATES YOU] – _(At least, she really, really doesn't like you)_

2) (09 -18): [The Second Impression] – _(Because the first ones can be deceiving)_

3.) (19-27): [Collapse of the Wave Function] – _(Finally! Explanations! Heed the enemies of the world, of which there are three. The father, the son and the holy spirit.)_

4.) (28-37): [Instruments of Fate and Destiny] – ( _SEELE's scenario is being overwritten by us. Everything in existence is merely an instrument to archieve this purpose.)_

5.) (38-49)  [The IdolatrousExpressionismPunk]  – _(VIGILATE ET ORATE – ITAQUE NESCITIS DIEM NEQUE HORAM)_

6.) (50-?) [Darkness in Paradise] - ( _Invaders must die!_ )

7.) ?-?: [The Denial of the Self]* _– (As if everything else he gets to put up with wasn't bad enough, poor Shinji now suffers from an acute case of artist's block. Other stuff also happens._ _ **Lots**_ _of other stuff. "Baka! Why do you even bother with that oversized Violin in the first place?")_

8.) ?-?: [The Good Machine] - _(Because as it turns out, context_ does _matter)_

9.) ?-?: [Femina Faber] – _(There was no way that she would allow a man who had given life before to come inside her dwellings... "Say, Shinji-kun, wouldn't you like to have a step-mother?")_

10.) ?-?: [The Shinji Ikari Raising Project] - _(NERV had treated the First Child as a science experiment, the Second as an elite super-warrior, and the Sixth as an employee. The pilots were neither of these things.)_

 

11.) ?-?: [Turning Back the Pendulum]** – _(Just where did it all go wrong?)_

12.) ?-?: [The Weight of their Names] – _(Lethe, Lethe... Why did the ancient Greeks only leave us the word, and not the recipe?)_

13.) ?--?: [Struggling Onwards] – _(They just keep coming!)_

14) ?-?: [Girlfriend of Steel] – _(Aww, how cute~ Shin-chan finally got himself a girlfriend!)_

14a) [Spring] (?-?) – _(Ohmygosh you're so cute! Please be my boyfriend?)_

14b) [Summer] (?-?) – _(_ _ **Of course**_ _this has to happen now. Now you have ambitions of being happy.)_

14c) [Fall] (?-?) – _(Because what goes up must come down eventually...)_

14d) [Winter] (?-?) – _(She broke my_ _ **heart**_ _. You merely broke my life.)_

15) _?-?:_ [To The Pain] _*** – (Yes, I know what you think of me. You never shut up.)_

16) ?-?: [The AHAB Desperados] – _(You have amazing instincts, Ikari Shinji-kun. But could you actually fire that gun?)_

17) ?-?: [The Fort In The Clouds] – _(The Angel of the God Rock)_

18) ?-?: [Reverse Rebirth] – _(The great defeat Shinji had long expected to come.)_

19) ?-?: [Heritage Arc] – _(Swear to me, father. Swear on something that_ _ **matters**_ _.)_

20) ?-?: [The Threshold Guardian] - _(Thou shalt (not) pass)_

21) ?-?: [Peaceful Days] – _(Because in the end, my feelings were real)_

22) ?-?: [Finale] - _(Nomen est Omen)_

* possibly sub-arcs; It'll be _really_ long, probably the longest of this list. Although I currently think of it in terms of multiple intertwined plot threads that run parallel instead of subsequent events. Just a bunch of situations I always thought would be interesting to try out. I hate how that list is not an accurate representation of actual text volume at all.

** Might, or might not get integrated into "Denial of the self" as a subplot/spread out plt thread. It will make sense when we get there. Might also be placed later, or even become an Interlude between this Arc and the next.

*** Might end up taking place after "Denial of the self"-Arc, or become a subset of it – it depends how it fits with certain events and lines/points/relationship trajectories. I might even cancel it completely.

Some titles may change if I think of better ones. This list/preview will be actualized for the benefit of later-coming readers until Act II is finished.

...Also, this is a good a spot as any to explain the chapter numeration which is going to reset in each full arc, and also be a little different than it is in the German version, in that what are chapters 01 and 02 will be merged into a single one and labelled as 00, mostly because they're pretty short, I don't want the chapter quote to be that significant a fraction of the page lenght XD I hope this will alleviate the wait at least somewhat, I'll try to work as fast a thing think called RL lets me...


	19. Act II: Rising Action: [You do (not) connect]  Chapter 00: [Mari of Bethany]

**_Es ist deine Reinheit_ **

_Die du mit dir rumträgst_

_Es ist deine Würde_

_Die du in dir auslebst_

**_Es ist deine Wahrheit_ **

_Die du mit dir rumträgst_

_Es ist Weiblichkeit_

_Die vor dir herschwebt  
_

**_[...]_ ** _  
_

**_Es ist deine Anmut_ **

_Die aus dir herausbricht_

_Es ist Energie_

_Die jedem ins Herz sticht  
_

**_Die ganzen Menschen hier_ **

_Alle tanzen nur für dich_

_Denn du bist wirklich_

_Göttlich_

_Heftig_

_Mächtig_

_Weiblich  
_

__-Megaherz, "Göttlich"_ _

__[:]_ _

__It is your purity_ _

__that you carry around with you_ _

__It is your dignity_ _

__that you act you within yourself_ _

__It is your truth_ _

__that you carry around with you_ _

__It is femininity_ _

__that floats onward before you_ _

_[…]_

__It is your grace_ _

__that breaks out of you_ _

__It is energy_ _

__that pierces our hearts_ _

__All the people here_ _

__they're all dancing just for you_ _

__because you are truly_ _

__Divine._ _

__Intense._ _

__Powerful._ _

__Feminine._ _

__-Megagerz, 'Divine'_ _

* * *

"Kaji-san! At last, I finally got through to you in person! I'm sick of that stupid answering machine!"

"Well, you know..." a man of about thirty years began to speak, holding his stubble-covered chin to the surface of his phone while his steps reverberated on the metal grate that made up the high runway he walked on.

It was about as wide as the average man was tall and framed by a handrail on each side. Further onward, there was a crossroads of such, four of such catwalks joined by a round platform as their juncture, which was held up by a black, cylindrical pillar; Otherwise, most of the room was dark, filled with machinery, tubes and pipelines many of which seemed to be oriented or leading towards a large tank with the dimensions of a skyscraper, as far as the dim, red lights allowed it to be seen.

While there were various maintenance gauges and even a few consoles accessible adjacent to the catwalk, none of them seemed to be active beyond a simple standby mode, which might have given rise to questions about just what exactly the man was doing there, besides conducting a phone call: "...I'd like to spend all my time sitting around chatting with you, but I'm afraid there's this little thing called 'work' I have to take care of..." he explained, jovially. "It's called _business_ trip for a reason. But don't worry, I'll be back in Germany by tomorrow. Wouldn't want to miss our ship. I've just got a few... errands to run first. You'll get to see me soon enough."

"I can't wait! Without you, I'm really getting bored to death over here!" a girl's voice emanated from the receiver. "Where exactly are you, anyway?"

"Bethany Base." the man answered, a tall, exceptional specimen with his long, brown hair tied into a ponytail, an anthracite-gray uniform that further supplemented the coolness value of his hairstyle and, to crown it all, a considerably attractive, masculine face adorned with a sward of stubble. "I'm pretty much at the North Pole."

"I bet that sucks. You must be pretty bored yourself, between all the annoying office work and being stuck up there... I don't suppose the North Pole has much to offer in terms of recreational opportunities..."

"Sorry to disappoint you." the man answered. "But boredom is just about the least of my problems up here. If work doesn't keep me on my toes, then good old Mari certainly will make sure of that..."

" _Mari?!_ " the girl on the other end of the connection shrieked, having lost a good portion of her earlier haughty intonation. "Who the hell is _that?_ Don't tell me she's some Ex-girlfriend of yours!"

"No, no, nothing of the sort." the man, whom his young conversational partner identified as 'Kaji' replied with a soft chuckle. "Just an old friend. Well, not literally old, considering she's not much older than you are. Quite the little free spirit, though, so I guess birds of a feather flock together... I'm sure you'd get along with her, too."

"Well, I'm not convinced!"

"Anyway, I've gotta say 'bye' now. Things are about to get very busy over here."

"And don't you _dare_ make a move on this other girl!"

Once the call was ended and the white screen with the words 'Sound Only' on it had been displayed by one slightly lewd wallpaper featuring a well-endowed, long haired woman on a beach, he folded his phone back together and stuffed it back into the pocket of his uniform. Now more serious than carefree, he gazed back into the darkness he had left behind him, and of what he'd left behind back there.

He didn't exactly like having to do this, but neither could he think of any alternative that would be within his power to carry out.

From that same pocket he left the phone in, he pulled a small electronic device, briefly checked the series of numbers on its lone display which was steadily counting down, and then put it right back.

Normally, he ought to be mostly concerned about the remainder of the preparations he would have to make for what was about to take place, now that he had a strict time schedule to keep to – but the word 'ex-girlfriend', as casually as the girl had mentioned it, was very effective at leading his thoughts to another inevitability that awaited him only slightly further ahead on the path he had decided on...

He might be so efficient at lying and cheating that he could earn a livelihood with those skills, but a liar skilled enough to convince him that the prospect of crossing paths with that woman after so many years hadn't struck him with heartache was something god had yet to thrown down from the heavens.

* * *

The darkness was crossed by both a few bubbles and a sloshing noise as the warm liquid ousted the air from the entry plug.

She knew that the sight of substance enveloping her was probably just about to be replaced by the clear view of the interface, its patters and frames designed to fool her into thinking that the liquid wasn't there – but Mari Illustrious Makinami had never trusted her eyes that much to begin with, in part because ever since her birth, she could have given a mole lessons in being near-sighted.

Just because the vibrant color of the LCL was no longer reaching her retinas, there was no reason to suppose that it had disappeared, for the Fourth Child could still sense it in all of its majesty as she took in the medium around her, purposefully sucking it in as if she wanted to swathe every square centimeter of her body's internal surface in the liquid's inimitable taste and smell so it might continue to dance on her cells, the cursed red water that smelled of _red_ , smelled of _**life**_.

Starting on the inside of her limbs, she began to feel the emergent ticklings of the most intense, most electrifying sensation she had ever perceived, stronger than the deepest bungee jump before the process was even past the start-up phase

The tingling covered every speck of her skin, filled her volume completely, and from the moment she had first sensed the tug of the connection, Mari opened herself all too gladly, opening the gates of her soul to more and more of that torrent of weightlessness, welcoming it with wide open arms as she allowed it to rush inside of her.

She gazed into EVA 05, and EVA 05 gazed into her.

Not that there was much, no concrete sense of 'self', just a simple spark of organic life, composed mostly of basic instincts and drives, mingled with a distant refraction of something surprisingly familiar, but that would do.

There was nothing amongst those things that Mari didn't also have.

They would become fast friends, EVA 05 and her.

'Come, let us go', she told the enormous colossus, with every pulse of her soul, those ecstatic, _overflowing waves_ at the borders of her region that wildly ebbed and flowed into the expanse of the connection in her playfully-probing attempts at feeling it out. 'Come, and let us live, at least a little. Aren't we both life, you and I?' Along the path of that thoughts, her oscillations finally settled on a gentle, yet unearthly wavelength that followed other rules than the languages of humans, like the song of a fearless tamer who could calm the most ferocious beasts, like the medium who made her very existence a path between here, now and the shadows of the netherworld, or like a pagan priestess channeling the gods, intoxicated with incense and thoroughly, _willfull_ y lost in the mad dance of the korybantes.

She was here, she was now and she was breathing in the thrilling, rapturous red.

Life wants to be alive, and all she wanted to do right now was _be_.

She didn't think of it in terms of her little ritual being crowned with success, she just felt the growing resonance that reverberated closely behind those sensations and how they, in turn, reflected her initial invitation; Heart and Heart being roused from whatever less dynamic state they had slumbered in and progressively harmonizing thenmselved into a single, booming concord as Mari herself sat in the darkness and enjoyed the indescribably exhilarating, and at the same time, awesomely extreme, almost _painful_ process, barely registering the technicians' voices as they passed her by.

"Start Entry Sequence."

"Initializing LCL ionization."

"Plug depth stable at default value."

"Boot-up voltage has cleared the threshold."

"Launch prerequisites achieved."

"Synchronization rate requirements are go."

"Pilot, please specify linguistic norms for cognitive functions."

It took Mari a bit to realize that she had just been addressed and was expected to answer.

Somewhat sheepish, Mari began to think of an answer – The question, however, did not have the effect of disrupting her concentration, the connection process steadily continued in the background of whatever her conscious mind was doing, for the Evangelion and her were already connected at a significantly deeper level, one of the innermost layers of herself that was much more constant than her fickle thoughts – What language? Her choice did end up reflecting those earliest, dearest memories that resided in that place, but also whatever all the spectators in the control rooms would be the least likely to understand – this moment was _hers_ , a long-awaited one, and she wanted to give this experience its space without anyone's squabblings intruding:

"Uh, since it's the first time, I think I'll go with Japanese."

"Roger!" some operator affirmed.

Then, Mari listened as the machinery around her started to move, and hung on to her control yokes as her EVA was moved into its finalized launch position.

A sharp jolt went through both the Entry Plug and the Fourth Child inside of it – Despite all her earlier musings on _red_ , most of what she could see from there was actually _green_ : The green of her plugsuit, the green of her pilot seat, even the helmet she was wearing was green, to match the EVA itself; All these things might consist of rubber, varnish, plastic and metal, but what really gave them their shape and consistence was the hope of the people who'd participated in its assembly – It was almost as if their thoughts were manifesting in the color of hope that coated their handiwork.

The only physically visible red were the strings of letters and numbers that were speeding through the 'windows' of the interface at the time it finally appeared, akin to the booting sequence on a computer – but there was a very good reason for its presence, since the "provisional" Unit was, as the name suggested, not technically finished yet. But since the beginning of this project, the growth of the head and torso had been prioritized so that they would have a halfway operable EVA as soon as possible, even if they had to prepare cybernetic limbs for the event of an unexpectedly early launch – In that way, EVA 05 was more of a straightforward cyborg than many of its more 'conventional' brethren.

These mechanical parts, however, couldn't be moved nearly as intuitively as the EVA's biological parts that were already very human-like to begin with, therefore, the Entry-plug of a provisional Evangelion was filled with much more visible technology than a regular one: The control yokes had several switches built into them, the pilot wore a large, clunky helmet with an insect-like red visor closed in front of her eyes, and the wrist-parts of her plug suit were attached to three green tubes per arm.

The plug suit itself was green on the torso, but white on the limbs, inverting the Evangelion's own color scheme; The white parts and whatever padding they included was divided into white rectangles that might have evoked an old soviet spacesuit, while the green parts ended in a skirt-like seam shortly below her hips, leaving her pubic mount and the majority of her buttocks to be covered by the same white material as her legs, while her breasts were encased in a protective plating made-up of several hard plastic stripes – but only quite inadequately.

The plug suit might have been designed to adapt to it's wearer's body shape, but as Mari found out when she was shaken around by the contraptions meant to position the EVA, and thus, was made to undertake her first proper full-body movements since she boarded the plug, that wondrous adaptability did not extend up to cup size E.

She tried to squirm around inside the suit to nudge her breasts back into their designated spaces, but there simply wasn't enough such space for them to fit into, so that she ultimately capitulated with a sigh.

"I'm sorry. The remaining components didn't arrive in time." Kaji, who was apparently present in the command center as well, apologized over the intercom. Not that those missing components were all too high on Mari's current list of worries: "My chest is completely hemmed in!"

"Sorry about that, to. And about having to send you out in a provisional unit as well."

"I don't mind." Mari stated as she adjusted the small dials on her helmet until she had a sharp view of the outside world on the hexagonal panels of the interface. "I'm just glad that I finally get to pilot an EVA!" she confessed, greedily taking in every bit of the enormous stream of information that the EVA offered to her – She was bursting with excitement and loving every bit of it – She could already feel the Evangelion's metallic limbs almost as if they were her own; She hadn't thought that there could be a conscious state so far from the sensation of ordinary 'being'.

"Well, you little troublemaker didn't exactly make it easy for us to trust you with one. Good luck!"

That was basically her launch order – Time to go, time to go!

Mari couldn't hardly contain the feeling, yet alone believe it. The rush of adrenaline that shot through her blood was beyond her wildest dreams. She looked past her white-clad thighs to where her controls were, letting her nigh-manic fingers make the final adjustments.

"It's moving! _It's moving!_ This feels so _wicked_ I could go crazy right now!" She now leant forward to finally grasp the controls firmly, bearing an ecstatic grin.

She pulled on the levers to cause the antennas meant for the power supply to connect with the corresponding rails on the ceiling of the tunnel – Mari supposed that the mechanism probably worked roughly like a bumper car – and finally concluded that everything was in place. _Oh boy, oh boy!_ She felt like every single nerve cord in her body was just about to catch fire – The experience was incomparable even to any sort of parachute jump, it was practically a spiritual event. Despite the constricting suit and tunnel walls, she felt unspeakably free, free beyond all bounds, free to fully live out what had always been inside of her.

" _Ready!"_ she informed the people back at the command center, after it kind of occurred to her that they still existed, and released the last remaining lock bolts. "Provisional Unit 05, _activate!_ "

The luminescent writing on the pilot's helmet lit up in the same instant.

Now, he could get started with the actual task at hand – which was more than overdue, ince her enemy was also very much ready – Raziel, the angel of the deep.

With a laser beam fired from his eyes, he effortlessly blasted one of the tunnel network's numerous shutters out of his way, and proceed to float across the fire lines of several tanks, all completely unhampered without showing the slightest semblance of damage.

How _ridiculous_ they were, those defense lines of the Lillim – the more humiliating it felt to Raziel that being like these could have taken the promised land from him and his kind, or that they had held Raziel himself for so, so long inside their earthly prison – He didn't know just to what he owed this opportunity, nor was it in his nature to even formulate such a question, but this didn't detract from his certainty: He would make good use of this chance to take vengeance on those accursed beings who despite the tiny, fragile nature of their measly bodies somehow managed to strip the flesh from his bones by wiping them from his sight to reclaim this world for himself and his remaining brothers and sisters.

The pain, a side effect of their probing, still reverberated throughout his being; A Lillim would be long dead in a state like his, but a being blessed with the fruit of life could never die, unless the very vessel of its soul were to be destroyed, and that was still perfectly intact inside his bare skull.

Therefore, his suffering still continued.

And, his life still continued. He would make good use of his father's gift, and finally, for the first time since his life first awakened deep, deep down inside the eternal ice of wherever the explosion that accompanied his birth had blown him to, he would taste the air of the planet whose riches should have been his birthright, ever since that birth, the time span he didn't know they would call 'fifteen years', on the occasion of that fateful, failed attempt to convert this world for the likes of them.

Raziel intended to complete what his father had begun and, after all this time he had spent inside the Lillim's alien structures, finally, _finally_ create a place he could call his own.

Driven by pure survival instinct, Raziel melted his way through one door after another, his mind filled with only one thought:

…...FREE...DOM...FREEEEEEEDOM... FREEEEEEEEEE...

* * *

As far as the people in the command center were concerned, Raziel already _had_ a place where he belonged: His now breached containment tank.

Consequently, it was easy to guess just how happy they were about his unstoppable advance through the tunnel systems: Not at all.

"Defend the Limbo Area at all costs!" an elderly man ordered, hanging on to his console in disbelief, stunned at what the screens in front of him seemed to be wanting to tell him. "We cannot allow it to escape from Archeron!" The man paused to order his thoughts;

This was way beyond all worse case scenarios.

"How could a containment system as secure as Cocytus be neutralized? That fool Mitsurugi claimed it could easily withstand a nuclear blast!"

Right on cue, a stream of mangled English intruded from the back of the platform: "It was within the realm of possibility."

Whether the old man and his subordinates turned towards him because they didn't quite get what he was saying, or _exactly_ because they _had_ understood him will always remain a mystery.

In any case, Kaji, who had shown up with his gray uniform with a sly, confident smirk on his face, continued his massacre on the English language:

"On its own, humanity isn't capable of holding the Angels in check. The analysis following the permafrost-excavation of the Third Angel was so extensive, all there was left was the bones. And _that_ was the conclusion."

The NERV-personel's expressions, be they shocked or confused, quite soon took a turn in the direction of indignant surprise when Kaji, without any further comments, spontaneously pulled out a flight helmet and waved goodbye with an audacious grin.

"That said, good luck!"

And then, he toddled off, leaving the Bethany Base staff standing there like a bunch of pizzas that had been ordered, but never picked up.

As soon as the guy with the special mission from headquarters made his escape, it didn't take them any exceptional mathematical arts to figure that they were pretty much done for.

* * *

In the meantime, EVA 05 was likewise steadily proceeding through the base's tunnel system – on a direct collision course with the angel.

The power antennas slid past the corresponding power rails on the tunnel ceiling; As if unconsciously, the Evangelion followed every tiniest motion of its pilot in a very natural manner, like the expectant rhythmic forward motion of her arms. The small wheels on each of the EVA's legs which, unlike with regular units, numbered four, were coated with a dark, forest-green varnish, and substantially more insectoid in shape, the robotic grappler, the long, gigantic medieval-style that resembled the weapons that the knights of old used to use in their jousting matches, but in reality consisted of an experimental material meant to constitute a first-generation copy of the legendary Lance of Longinus, the torso that had remained white because it's paint job hadn't been finished in time except for the many glowing security stripes on it, even the sharp-edged contours of the head which also evoked a knight's helmet, it all danced to the tune of its crusading palladina, a literal tune, one might add, for Mari felt so elated that she spontaneously erupted into song: "Shiawase waaaa aruite ko-nai, daaaaakala aruite yukunnnn da neeee, Ichi ni chi ippo, miiiika de sanpo, sanpo susun-nipo sakaruuuu. Jiiiiiiusei wa one-two-punchiii..."

In time with her song, Mari overjoyedly pulled at her control yokes, causing the lance and the grappler to move in tandem without the slightest delay.

The Fourth Child's synchronization rate had shot up with remarkable ease, she led the green titan forward like a fish takes to water – The experience of moving a foreign body and at the same time, feeling it with her own was simply unbelievable.

Effortlessly, she sped through the corridors and shafts, just fooling around in zealous expectation, driving on the wall for a bit to test out her possibilities as the automatic shutters kept closing behind her – until she finally locked onto a red glow at the end of the tunnel, and thrust her full body forward from her previously fairly upright sitting position to engage the target with all she had.

"There it is!" Mari gushed euphorically. "Deploying AT-field!"

And indeed, Raziel came, consisting of little else than a long spine with ribs and a bare skull inside of which the luminescence of the core shone at full energy output. The being displayed a kind of serpentine motion throughout its full length, which nonetheless didn't contribute to it's main form of propulsion – at the middle of its body, it's ribs were not stark naked, but still contained within a horseshoe-like shell whose shrimp-like segments alternatingly constituted yellow-black stripes, and on it's underside, several wiggling, tiny insect-like legs that it used to eagerly crawl forward – the mere idea that these thin, wispy things could possibly carry the full weight of the bone giant was one giant insult about whom there would probably continue be a lot of snickering behind the laws of physics' back.

With a distantly avian shriek, Raziel unscrupulously charged the blasphemous creation of the Lilim that was blocking its path – and so, ran directly into EVA 05's very readily positioned, piercing lance.

Mari could barely wait to try it out.

With a bestial war cry that would have been worthy of a Klingon, Mari struck out backwards and then jousted her weapon forward making use of the kinetic motion of her EVA's forward sprint and a flowing, full-body movement in which she first lowered the EVA's torso and then stretched it forward along with the actual attack, thrusting her weapon directly towards the angel's body – But _it_ turned out to be very flexible and quickly slithered out of harm's way, using that same motion to wrap around the EVA as they both scratched against the wall, sending sparks flying.

"K-KYAAAH!" Mari shouted, unexpectedly overtaken and unused to the inertia of the EVA's greater mass, freeing herself from the angel's stranglehold with a well-placed kick. "It's hard to move in here!" Slightly pulling her legs together, Mari tried to somehow maneuver the Unit that had been uncontrollably flung away – She activated the brakes, but Unit Five still didn't come to a halt until it hit the next closed shutter – But Mari was not quite that easily to get rid of – Her parents had picked just the right thing when they settled on her idiosyncratic middle name: _Illustrious._

Without wasting a single second licking her wounds, she charged after the angel in a full-body motion, again leaning forward both her own ample shell and the EVA's body with all of its troublesome bulk.

"Well, then I'm just going to need some _brute force!_ "

By now, Raziel was just about done melting a hole through the next wall, and triumphantly marched into the larger hall beyond.

Here, he switched his wriggling crawl for levitation and appropriately, a large, golden halo of pure energy spread out above his body, and a dark mirror image of it's outline promptly broke from the ceiling.

All of Bethany Base shook, when the halo, and with it, its dark pendant above reached their full sizes – Everything glowed with golden light, and where its dark counterpart had been, an entire column of metal and concrete fell through its outline, and the halo rose to catch its handiwork and push it upwards; Together with the column of concrete, the angel ascended towards salvation.

* * *

"Outer wall integrity compromised!" a blonde technician reported with palpable anxiety. "The final seal is about to be breached!"

"Target has broken through Limbo Area! Now moving into Archeron!"

The older male who apparently commanded this outpost was progressively losing his nerve: "Get Unit Five to do **SOMETHING!** "

* * *

The angel, by contrast, had successfully reached his intermediary goal – Further and further, the cut-out concrete column rose from the outer hull of Bethany Base, hoisted up by the angel's herculean telekinetic strength, with which he gleefully broke it apart once they both finally, _finally_ reached the surface at long last.

Inside a slim pillar of light, the angel continued its vertical ascent – below him lay the dungeon that held him captive for almost his entire life: A large disk crowning the violated husk of what had once been his primordial, egg-shaped cocoon, surrounded by a circle of long, cylindrical black pillars that were inscribed with the ever-shifting, dynamic glymphs of the ancient ones in the red of their shared lifeblood.

A storm was raging outside, shaking up the red waters of the arctic sea, which surrounded the small outpost on all sides. Undoubtedly, most Lillim would have described the view as hellish and hostile to life, but Raziel was thoroughly overwhelmed: He had never personally perceived any of these things, only felt their presence through his inherent awareness.

He never knew that the creator's sky was so endless and vast, or that the roaring of it's winds was so mighty and ferocious. He never knew the red of his father's sea, the deep crimson color that spelled death to the Lillim, but for him and his kind meant nothing less than _life_ itself in its purest form.

He didn't expect the promised land to be so opulent, so glorious, so _large..._

The messenger felt awe.

He was in awe before the world, before the creators, and before his father;

At the sight of this seemingly infinite, unbelievable vastness, Raziel once again felt the wish to possess it, no longer born of any desire for childish revenge, but out of deepest admiration; He wanted to wipe it clean of all these repulsive Lillim who had no appreciation for its splendor and hid themselves away from it inside of the feeble, constricted structure of their cancerous swarm clusters.

Oh, you poor creature.

Your plans for your grand intentions never accounted for Mari.

* * *

"YOU STAY RIGHT HERE!" Mari bellowed, blasting off her EVA's power antennas and activating the rockets on its underside without wasting a single thought on the question for a way back.

The angel might have escaped, but that didn't mean it had won: Like a comet, Unit Five raced towards the skies, following after the angel through it's own improvised escape route – Her EVA might not have been intended for use outside the tunnels, but it wasn't like Mari had some more compatible EVA hiding in the barn, and besides, there was no way she would pause for a pit stop just where things were beginning to be really, really _fun!_ The emergency rockets only came with a very limited on-board fuel supply, but this problem could be quite easily solved in a convenient way that would kill two birds with one stone – With all of her strength, Mari rammed her lance straight through the angel's spine, into the black stone of a glyph-covered sealing pillar – Did she win?

For an instant, the lights inside the angel's skulls did indeed fade, and its entire body hung down limply like it had been knocked out – But Raziel remained tenacious, even when pinned to the mystic runes of the ancient hex, and soon awoke, expulsed a screeching shriek, and aimed a point-blank shot of it's laser at EVA 05's legs as they were holding on to his carapace, in a desperate attempt to interrupt the choke hold of the human creation.

The LCL to her right immediately _boiled,_ the Fourth Child's entire right arm was glowing like burning coal in a storm of frantic bubbles. The material of the plug suit swiftly discolored, its surface started to peel off, and because of her high synch ratio, she was quite serious that the skin beneath must have been covered in large, ugly blisters at this point.

"Auuuuu, aaaaaiiieeee, ouuuuutch...! _This hurts! It hurts like hell_!"

But above her gritted teeth, the Fourth Child's lips formed an animalistic smirk: _"But it's so damn_ _ **fun**_ _that I don't mind that all!_ "

Canalizing her manic ecstasy into her physical impetus as she lunged forward, she used the remaining, pincer-like arm to reach straight into the angel's jaws, firmly grasped the core it had bared to power its last attack, and _squeezed_. The creature frantically struggled to close its gorge, but it was no use.

With one hand on core and her lance in its throat, Mari was inseparable from her enemy.

Besides her, however, the battery counter was steadily nearing a row of zeroes – She might have her target pinned down, but in this unfinished – albeit faily likeable – Evangelion that was continuously breaking apart on her, she had no way of killing it off.

"There's no more time!" she concluded, squeezing down under great strain.

There were still bits of color coming off her plugsuit's still glowing right arm and floating all around her in the LCL, her nerves in that limb were so overloaded with pain that they could only answer her continuous orders to get back to the controls with erratic twitching of her hand. The other hand, meanwhile, was curled so tightly around its respective control yoke it _hurt –_ The green, mechanical pincers squeezed and squeezed, but somehow, the full extent of the pressure Mari was summoning up in her mind did not reach the angel's core. "Not enough power to force synchronization with the mechanical parts! The unit isn't holding out, either!"

The interface was beginning to flicker, too.

 _Great!_ Was there any other adverse circumstance she might have forgotten to mention?

Oh yeah, the plug suit's traitorous plastic chest plates seemed absurdly determined to chafe her breasts raw.

And if all of this weren't enough, the angel continued its lasery assault in spite of the Fourth Child's choke hold, which, all things considered, had been pretty useless anyway. Between the very cornered angel and the steadfastly crumbling Evangelion, their fight had long since turned into a pure battle of wills that transcended their faltering physical bodies, and what the angel wanted could be felt very clearly in the unprecedented strength of its most recent attack: It cleanly severed all four of EVA 05's legs and made sure they would still explode up in the air to further bombard the unfortunate unit and its pilot.

But the British girl was not deterred for long: Where any others might have clung to the lance as the final lifeline keeping the EVA from tumbling into the abyss, Mari laughed death in the face by jettisoning the lance (which caused the green tubes to detach from the wrist of her still smoldering arm which she finally managed to move through little other than iron determination) and proceeding to grip the angel's core with _both_ of Unit Five's grappler-like hands.

The EVA groaned with the additional strain and shared the further tension with the plastic panels that had been sewing its toothless mouth shut so far, ultimately tearing asunder with extreme prejudice, after which they now ironically resembled teeth, almost as if it wanted to scream together with Mari.

With both hands, she gripped the left control yoke and using all the strength she had left, pushed it as far as it would physically go.

"Now hurry up and DIEEEEEEEEEE!"

The core shattered and burst in her hands, but just to make sure it was really dead and all of her _other_ mission parameters were fully accomplished, Mari reached for the only weapon the mutilated EVA had left at its disposal: The self-destruct mechanism.

In a single instant, EVA 05 transformed into a wave of light and fire – Mari, however, didn't.

She had ejected her entry plug at the last possible moment and had it click smoothly into a rocket-powered harness she had attached to the EVA's back for this explicit purpose – The tiny propulsion jet and the entry plug strapped to it became a small, shining dot radiating into the atmosphere and outran the massive, spherical explosion which shattered the pillars of Bethany Base with its indiscriminate force.

* * *

A small aircraft soared beneath the clouded sky that was now beginning to clear up, as if to celebrate the ending of the battle with those first rays of sunlight that were only now breaking through.

Kaji, whose eyes had since concealed his eyes behind his helmet's visor in order to fly his one-man plane, pensively observed the ocean's surface beneath.

According to the incoming messages, the angel had been destroyed, the EVA completely vaporized, and its pilot safely escaped.

"...she triggered EVA 05's self-destruct mechanism without a moment's hesitation..." Kaji concluded. "Still... I don't like having to leave this kind of thing in the hands of a teenaged girl..."

He sneaked a brief peek at the security-hard-top case that lay atop his own, orderly packed luggage that had been long prepared for today's 'accident'.

There goes package number one.

As for the second one, it was still waiting to be picked up back in Germany.

He just hoped that Commander Ikari had been serious about this 'generous escort' he had promised him for that particular hazardous cargo...

* * *

Although the cloud layer was slowly but steadily opening up, the waves stirred up by the final shock wave had yet to calm down completely. Compared to the drifting entry plug, the bloodied seas still resembled a range of large hills.

But once its floating patterns were deemed safe enough, the hatch opened accompanied by a puff of steam, and out sprang a very exhausted Makinami Mari, hanging on to the entry plug's outer metal hull for support while she lifted her still aching body out of the hatch. The silhouette that now contrasted against the red of the arctic ocean was that of a tall, lanky girl who nonetheless possessed plenty in the terms of opulent female attributes such as wide hips, large breasts and a generous distribution of material around her thighs and buttocks, even though all of it was still throbbing from the heavy side effects of her first proper Evangelion battle.

The fire-garlands of pain were still dancing through her nerves like the memory of a loyal friend whom she had only known shortly, but was very unlikely to ever forget.

"Oh my, synchronization with an EVA is even more intense than they ever told me..." she mumbled to herself while she leaned against the hull of the plug, opened her visor and finally removed her helmet altogether.

Ah, there was nothing more relaxing than good old fresh air!

Despite the stench of the bloody sea, Mari could still make out the typical freshness of air purified by a storm.

That, too, was a strong caontender for the 'scent of life'.

Her now liberated pigtails playfully danced in the breeze; Mari had a fairly attractive face framed by wild brown hair, with vibrant blue-green eyes and a thin European nose in its center. Said hair was further adorned by a somewhat dreamy-looking alice band in the color of midday sky which simultaneously served as her interface headset as evidenced by the white nerve clips on its sides.

The most noticeable accessories were probably her bright red plastic glasses, especially since the right lens seemed to have cracked at some point of the battle.

Despite the trickle of blood that was running down her face on her right side, or the way she was letting the arm with the discolored plug suit rubber around it hang down because the injuries and subsequent overexertion had rendered it impossible to move reliably, there was an unearthly smile on her lips when she finally stood at her full height.

"But never mind, it's good to be alive... still, I don't like having to involve adults in my plans..."

With her gaze directed as the two cross-like beams in the distance and the rainbow that had appeared around them, and a calm, serene expression on her face, she chose to dedicate a moment to a fallen companion:

"Farewell, EVA Unit Five... Thank you for fulfilling your role so bravely."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) Title is a funny little allusion to the biblical character "Mary of Bethany", who some interpretations equate with Mary Magdalene. Basically the hair towel chick, if any of you remember her.
> 
> (2) Just to avoid confusion: The person Kaji was phoning in the beginning was intended to be Asuka. As for his phone's wallpaper, it's supposed to be Misato, in a pose not unlike that photo from episode , although not necessarily the same one. He could never bring himself to press the delete button once and for all... or something like that.
> 
> (3) I've taken the name 'Raziel' from the proposal, where the first angel (or rather, 'apostolo') to attack wasn't good 'ol Sachiel, but rather a 'metallic giant' by the name of Raziel. Given that the name was intended for some spiritual predecessor of Sachi, it seemed appropriate for the one who got squeezed in before him in the numeration.
> 
> (4) If the horrible English thing was unintentional, (which I admit it probably was) I wonder why everyone else's English was significantly more tolerable. XD
> 
> (5) Translation of Mari's song: "Happiness won't walk to me just because I look for it/ so I'll have to walk to where it is/ One step in one day/ three steps in three days/ three steps forwards and just two steps back/ sometimes life just punches you out..."
> 
> (6) In case this wasn't completely obvious, I absolutely LOVE Mari *.*
> 
> (7) The next chapter will be longer again and comes with the fairly informative title of 01: [SECOND CHILD HATES YOU] I hate to make you wait any more, but I fear I'll have to update the German version next. I'll probably pop out the whole remainder of the "Practice" Arc at once to make up for how long it's been... * sigh * and of course, the semester has started and it's time I got a move on if I plan on passing any exams this year... I'll try my best, though, so thanks for all of your patience until now.


	20. 01: [SECOND CHILD HATES YOU]

**_Got a figure like a pinup_ **

_Got a figure like a doll_

_Don't care if you think I'm dumb_

_I don't care at all_

_candy Pie, sweety pie_

_Wanna be adored_

_I'm the girl you die for  
_

**_I chew you up and_ **

_I spit you out_

_'Cause that's what young love_

_Is all about_

_So pull me closer_

_And kiss me hard!_

_I'm gonna pop your bubblegum heart  
_

**_I'm miss suggar pink_ **

_Leca leca lips_

_Hit me with your sweet love_

_Steal me with a kiss_

_I'm miss suggar pink_

_Leca leca lips_

_I'm gonna be your bubblegum bitch_

_I'm gonna be your bubblegum bitch  
_

**_Quetex, latex_ **

_I'm your wonder-maid_

_Life gave me some lemons_

_So I made some lemonade_

_Soda Pop, Soda Pop_

_Baby here I come_

_Straight to number one  
_

**_Oh dear diary_ **

_I met a boy_

_He made my doll heart_

_Light up with joy!_

_Oh dear diary_

_We fell apart_

_Welcome to the life of Electra Heart!  
_

_[...]  
_

**_I think I want_ **

_Your American tan_

_I think I'm gonna_

_Be my biggest fan  
_

__-Marina and the Diamonds, 'Bubblegum Bitch'_ _

* * *

"Yes. I've already made arrangements with the committee about this. The cargo has already left Sasebo and is currently on its way across the pacific..." folding his phone after finishing his call, Ikari had barely had the time to redirect his attention to the next task at hand when he heard the hiss of his office door.

"...come in." he demanded, making sure his phone was turned off and stored away before beginning this conversation – In the door frame stood Akagi, mercifully in her usual costume consisting of a miniskirt, stockings and her white lab coat and not any more dolled up than it was typical for her. She was carrying a clipboard with various papers, which she proceeded to place on her superior's desk. One might inquire why she would still bother to keep up her facade of professionalism in front of someone who had seen her true self very clearly – perhaps so she could tolerate her own sight in the mirror. But that potential wondering someone certainly wasn't Ikari – His thoughts were someone else entirely and his disengagement of all potentially bugged or otherwise fallible electronic devices wasn't a gesture of discretion as much as one of situationally appropriate paranoia, part of which was to make sure they actually discussed whatever their cover was supposed to be.

"Here are the progression graphs for the synch tests of the last few weeks."

The front page of the report her long, deep red fingernails were arranging in front of him showed two distinct curves, one that had remained very, very flatly at one particular point on the border between the lower and middle thirds of the scale, and another that was on a very obvious, very steep course upward, the occasional spontaneous downward fluctuation notwithstanding.

The commander's scrutinizing eyes briefly browsed over the resume, but ultimately responded with a quiet "Good.", before moving on to the most urgent reason for the secrecy: "And what about... our _other_ problem?"

"There have been no further victims. Which I'm personally not ungrateful for, given that panic breaking out in the city or having this connected to the names of our organizations would needlessly complicate things at this point. But on the other hand, that means that we no longer have any indicators to keep track of what that thing might be doing, and if its behavior patterns are indeed changing... we don't have much of a capacity to predict it, either. For all we know it might have left Tokyo-3 already..."

"I don't think so." Ikari objected. "If killing humans had been its only objective until now, it wouldn't have had any reason to stay here in the first place. But it did stay. Almost as if wanted to stay close to some resource that would not be present elsewhere."

"You mean it's sticking close to _us?_ "

"Or to something in our vaults." Ikari concluded, somewhat exasperating the fake blonde by showing little outward signs of concern.

"Then why doesn't it just come and get whatever that it wants? And, on that subject, why has it only killed so few people so far? When it escaped, it was butchering everyone it came across, but the later killings have been mostly isolated incidents with no obvious blood trail between them... When you look at it that way, it becomes hard to believe that killing humans was ever among its primary objectives..."

"...but rather, a means to an end." the commander completed, implying a conclusion that the leader of the technical division was reluctant to articulate: "Which would mean that it has stopped to kill because... it no longer needs to... Given where it came from, this should be completely impossible, but that would mean that this thing really has something like a _plan_ , complete with multiple stages."

"Which makes stopping it an even higher priority." Ikari stated dryly. "What about that tracking method you have proposed?"

"Here are the blueprints." Another pile of papers found their way onto the commander's desk. "The results from Golghatha have proven very useful, although we are probably still miles away from having the dummy plug at our disposal. Additionally, this new purpose will require its own particular modifications and adjustments, which might take a little while. The finished device could be called the prototype of the world's first physical implementation of an AT-field resonance detector."

"...Well done. From this moment, this entire affair, including the design and assembly process of the detector, will be codenamed 'Project Kronos'. The escaped subject will be reclassified from 'Rei 49' to 'Leatha'."

"Understood."

"And how are the blueprints for the upgrade of EVA 00 to production model status coming along?"

"They're finished, and the same goes for the minimal repairs on the most essential systems. All that's left to do is to ask the pilot what color she'd prefer for the paint job on the outer hull. If worst comes to worst, it can probably be launched and operated in case of an emergency, but it will probably take weeks before it's back to full efficiency."

* * *

That Sunday morning, it was the warm rays of the morning sun that tickled Shinji out of his sleep.

Not quite settled into the new day, he tentatively opened his eyes, which filled with distant bewilderment right away.

Judging by the trend of the last few days, he would have expected a significantly ruder awakening preceded by intense dreams, but all he could recall from today's vision was a simple shoreline – The sea had showed itself in a clear, translucent blue, which, at least for Shinji, was a pretty strange sight, but that was had been the most remarkable thing about it.

It didn't fit at all with the steadily intensifying visions that had plagued him for the last few days... but that was only natural for dreams, right? To not follow any particular sense or order. If anything, that should confirm that they were just that, dreams.

They hadn't felt like normal illusions, but then again, the life that was generating them wasn't a normal one, either, and the... _pretty girls_ his fantasies had assembled (he tried not to think about the _boy_ ) were fairly average products for a 14 year old's head.

Trying hard to be relieved, he forcibly diverted his thoughts from the night before to the day that lay ahead, which was admittedly enough to place the beginnings of a genuine smile on Shinji's lips.

Today, he had this supposed surprise road trip with Misato, Touji and Kensuke waiting for him. Shinji wondered what Misato might have prepared for them – with her, you could never really know what she might think up.

In any case, Shinji found himself surprised that he was still capable of such jaunty anticipation.

Having a person that could in some ways be classified as a relative prepare some spontaneous excursion with his friends, just going out of town to have a good time... all of these things were new to him.

It had been a long time coming, but by now, Shinji didn't just feel at home here, he felt happy.

The Third Child climbed out of bed and started dressing.

Curiously, he had to admit that he was actually anticipating the 'surprise'.

As the young EVA pilot walked into the kitchen and began with the preparing breakfast, any grumblings about how he'd ended up doing all the housework were long forgotten – instead, he had gladly accepted and even begun to appreciate that he had his own places and tasks in this household.

He had no idea of that the events of this day were just about to throw his ordered little world into great disarray...

* * *

As far as their little tour's entertainment value was concerned, Misato had certainly kept her promises: Touji and Kensuke were having the time of their lives. Especially Kensuke.

Soon after their departure, he already wore a grin wide enough to put every respectable Cheshire cat to shame, the main reason being the vehicle that was intended to transfer them to their still mysterious destination: "Wow! I never thought I would ever get to ride a real MIL-55D cargo helicopter!" he exclaimed, alternating between filming the inside of their flying machine and the sea beneath with his trusty electronic friend, only putting down the camera to jokingly address the incumbent of the middle seat with a wide smile: "It's really great to have influential friends like you!"

Shinji, who had been thinking about something unrelated up to this point, merely answered with a slightly confused, "Hm?"

Only later would he explicitly notice that this was when Kensuke had begun to call him by his first name – for now, his attention was occupied by Misato, who was sitting besides the plane's pilot, but now turned around to let the kids in on the secret: "I thought that you might be bored of sitting around at home all the time, so I decided to bring you along for our rendezvous maneuver."

While Kensuke, who had shown up in green cargo pants with many pockets, a yellowish vest and a red tank top instead of his uniform, was busy filming again, Touji almost jumped out of his seat at the words, while Shinji did not quite know what to make of the starts in his eyes: "Did my ears just hear the word 'rendezvous'? Speaking of which, I've bought this cap especially for this occasion!" he declared, enthusiastically adjusting the position of the white baseball cap on his head.

Shinji, who was sitting between his two friends, couldn't summon up any such huge passion to be honest, and simply asked where they might be headed. It hadn't even occurred to him that this might be the kind of 'special occasion' where it might have been more appropriate to wear something other than his everyday school uniform, but since his previous life (or at the very least, the last three years of it) was completely devoid of any 'special occasions' whatsoever, he didn't really possess any clothing that would have been appropriate for this sort of thing. The uniform was practical enough, served its purpose, and he really wasn't the type to buy something 'special' just in case, especially since the last few memories pertained to events he would rather forget. Ultimately, he did feel somewhat bad for not even considering new caps or anything like that; He didn't want Misato to get the impression that he was ungrateful or didn't appreciate this sort of activity. He couldn't really say if he did. His feelings at the moment were generally positive, but to answer that question with a 'yes' felt like a commitment that extended to other possible circumstances, or might lead her to _do_ things or supposed favors outside of his control.

For now, Misato appeared sufficiently pleased with what he _did_ say, for she seemed to have been waiting for that exact question and winked at him with a conspirator grin as soon as he had voiced it, her answer consisting of a pointed finger directed at the sea beyond the window: "We'll be going on a little cruise through the pacific on one of these little boats!"

The boy's expression's soon betrayed that the 'little boats' were anything but what that description might lead one to expect, but this was perfectly alright with Kensuke, who immediately pointed his camera at them and proceeded to display his encyclopedic knowledge about military vehicles of any kind: "WOW! Five aircraft carriers and four destroyers! It's a full-fledged battle fleet! Oh, thank you for bringing us along! Now _that's_ what I call true friendship!"

"These are supposed to be the 'little boats'?" Touji asked, distinctly less impressed. By contrast, Kensuke's amazement grew all the more: "I can hardly believe it! See that ginormous one in the middle? That's the 'Over the Rainbow', the proud flagship of the UN fleet!"

"It's pretty huge." Shinji commented, not completely unimpressed.

"It's also practically a museum piece. I wonder how such an obsolete ship can even stay afloat."

"That's precisely the most awesome thing about it!" Kensuke gushed. "That's still real vintage work from before Second Impact! And we really get to see it up-close? Incredible!"

While Kensuke was so exited that he probably would have chewed off the entirety of his nails including his fingertips if he hadn't still needed them to hold his camera, the ship's bridge was far from teeming with elation about the helicopter's arrival.

An older man in uniform, marked by his insignias as an Admiral and thereby the commanding officer of the fleet, observed the vehicle's descent with the sourest contempt.

"...There goes the power plug for that children's toy we get to ferry across the landscape..."

But there was also someone else watching the helicopter land, observing from a banister on a heightened platform, wild tresses of hair swirling around in the sea breeze like dark extensions of the solar corona above...

* * *

Yet unaware of the imminent danger, Shinji and his friends unsuspectingly disembarked from their helicopter.

"Ooooh! Incredible! Incredible! Incredible! In-cre-di-ble! Oh the _joy_ ~~"

At the sight of all the war planes, ships, antennas and satellite dishes, Kensuke seemed dangerously close to a moderate seizure and continued his camera-toting dance of joy right past the somewhat nonplussed soldiers, closely followed by Touji's prized cap which had taken advantage of the not particularly gentle onslaught of the wind to take flight, prompting its owner to chase after it in a distinctive panic.

Behind them followed a comparatively calm Shinji who was more concerned with leisurely stretching out his arms after the long ride in the cramped cabin, and of course, Misato as well.

Meanwhile, Touji's cap had caught up to Kensuke and in fact, taken the lead, much to its owner's chagrin – given that they were currently on a ship, his fears that that his new accessorize might end up sinking into the ruby waters of the pacific were not exactly unmerited.

The tall boy desperately sprinted after his headgear, but despite his generally formidable athletic skills, it probably would have taken some sort of professional Olympian runner to match those merciless winds – but his hope flared up for a moment when he saw his base cap roll past a pair of slender feet in expensive, firetruck-red woman's shoes.

He didn't really know what this sort of footwear was doing on the ever-swaying deck of an aircraft carrier, but he was familiar with all those stories about women and their shoes. Some of them were fairly prone to have their common sense overruled by their vanity – actually, nearly all of them, except for rare exceptions like the bossy class representative, who in turn had her bossiness to compensate... most of the time.

In any case, he wouldn't be the one to complain as long as his cap was safe – but the initial relief that had begun to manifest on Touji's face met a grim end when the apparent savior of his cap revealed herself to be significantly less noble than the convenient placement of her feet would have him believe – To be fair, she did effectively keep the cap from being blown away again, but unfortunately, her preferred way of doing that was to generously stomp on it with her sinfully expensive name brand pumps.

And as expected from someone who was superficial enough to insist on this kind of footwear on the deck of a military vessel, she proved herself unfeeling enough to completely ignore Touji as he knelt down to pull his cap free, and instead took her sweet time to greet Misato who had since arrived with the other two boys in tow.

Within the first second of being acquainted with that person, Touji was decidedly certain that he could not stand her.

But Touji wasn't the only one on whom the girl left a swift and definite impression: Shinji, too, was examining the unfriendly stranger with wide open eyes.

In fact, she had been the very first thing his eyes had focused on upon reaching this place, she had completely taken over his field of vision the moment he spotted her, and indeed, he had to choice to look anywhere else, since the girl before him was pretty much _impossible_ to overlook – She was making personally sure of that.

Every tiniest tidbit of her appearance seemed deliberately crafted to irresistibly draw every pair of eyes whose gaze crossed her to where she stood, like a personified inward spiral inviting the eye to follow its lines to the center of the pattern: She stood there, with her legs spread apart and her hands on her hips, taking up as much room with her legs and elbows as she could without her pose seeming unnatural.

Her face was the worthy throne to self-assured smirk that informed everyone in her surroundings that they were being looked down on, regardless of how tall or important they might think they were. She adorned herself with a short, yellow sundress held by spaghetti straps, kept in the colors of the central star above, evoking the way it claimed the whole sky for itself each time it shone.

Besides her shoes, other garnishments to that picture involved a red wristwatch and a sky blue necklace.

The sum of her getup did not hide very much, but made what little it did conceal all the more titillating by keeping it just inches away from visibility – In general, the whole sight of her seemed intended as the worst possible torture a hormone-whacked teenager could experience, compiled by the skilled hands of an expert torture technician – and by that, Shinji didn't mean her expression's clear announcement that she knew just over 200 methods to make someone scream and was very much willing to use them.

Those were just an incidental supplement to a very different sort of weapons that were built right into her thoroughly perfect body and gave it its aura of irresistible attractiveness that made her shine like the afore-mentioned solar fire in Shinji's eyes.

But her beauty was not comparable to Misato's or Ayanami's; Misato's warm, playfully-provocative manner was too tangible and charmingly cozy to be labeled with a 'hard' word such as perfection, and Ayanami's perfection was the sort you might find in a moonlit greek statue, an ethereal, almost divine immaculateness; This young woman here was different. She, too, had something cold and unapproachable to her, but in a very different, profoundly _worldly_ way: Her kind of perfection was the one you could find on the covers of magazines, the impossible standard that was demanded of idol singers and actresses; The kind that most girls her age strained to reach with diets and make-up, but never quite reached.

She might as well have _been_ a model: Her sleek, athletic body had been rid of all imperfections by means of grueling hard work, with both these traits expressed as far as it was possible without slipping into an extreme that would no longer resemble traditional attractiveness.

Her breasts were even smaller than Ayanamis, more conical than rounded, but this exactly made them straddle this zone of not-quite-visibility despite the sparseness of her dress' yellow fabric.

It was like someone had described the global maximum of calculable beauty with a differential equation and then twisted the results into the shape of a girl of Shinji's approximate age group – There was nothing welcoming him to rest and lean onto her, nor any fragility as a toe point to apply protection.

Instead, she was a numbingly exotic, dominant presence that existed high above him even when they were standing on the same ground.

A _seductress._

Exotic, in part, because she did have Japanese-looking features in her face, but quite obviously had some of her roots elsewhere: Her skin was, depending on which member of the newly arrived quartet you compared her with, distinctly to noticeably lighter, but still rosy, and her eyes were blue – This was probably the first time that Shinji saw someone who shared his, at least in his homeland, fairly rare eye color, although it was a far lighter, icier shade of a pale, barely-there color, indicative of the cold and rainy place her ancestors had come from.

If Shinji had to guess, he'd say she was part... middle-European, although he wasn't very sure, most of the Europeans he'd seen so far had been on the screen of his sensei's old TV. Tiny villages like the one he'd grown up in were seldom centers of cosmopolitanism.

Now, he'd known that the occasional European (or American descended from them) would come with very light, almost golden hair, but what this girl had naturally sprouting on her head was something else entirely: Long, straight, vigorous, shining, and red like polished copper metal. If nothing else, that alone made sure that this girl would stand out of every ever so large crowd.

There was something about the color red that made it different from all other color – It's a typical 'warning color', he once heard his teacher say when discussing some kind of poisonous frog or beetle. A _signal_ to the world.

Or maybe it was because human blood was red, but somehow, any tiniest amount of the color would always stand out more than anything, no matter how chaotic the background; It attracted the eye if it as much as crossed its periphery.

There was always a particular air of eroticism around a woman in red – he already knew this from Misato.

But someone who had this red, this inexorable color of life as a permanent part of her own body that remained even when she was naked, that had this waterfall of red swinging after her with every step she took...

Shinji, who had always understood himself as someone inconspicuous and hesitant couldn't help but feel deeply intimidated by all that she was.

That was probably the reason why he didn't follow much after those passing thoughts that were telling him how impossibly familiar this new and foreign face seemed to be, or those implying a connection between her very conspicuous, obviously bright-red hair clips and the nerve clips on his very own EVA piloting interface headset.

He was far too busy marveling at her sheer existence.

"Hello, Misato!" She greeted leisurely, still adamantly refusing to remove her foot from Touji's cap, or to even acknowledge his existence with the slightest blink of her eyes.

"It's been a while! How have you been?"

"Oh, okay, as always." Misato assured, smiling as if oblivious to the spectacle below.

Quite bluntly, Shinji realized of all sudden that those two apparently knew each other from somewhere, and he didn't know a thing about it – This had to be yet another of these very significant details no one had ever bothered to tell him about.

Both females were talking to each other in suspiciously familiar tones: "Is it just me, or have you grown quite a bit taller?"

"And I've filled out, too!" the redhead boasted.

Only now did Misato decide to provide an explanation for this girl and what in heaven's name she was doing on an aircraft carrier: "May I introduce you? This is the Ace of the European Airforce: Captain Shikinami Asuka Langley, designated pilot of Evangelion Unit 02, our Second Child!"

That... explained a lot.

But either way, fate had not decided to be generous with our unfortunate little protagonist today: As soon as Misato had finished her explanation about the scantly-clad girl, another regrettable incident took pace.

As mentioned earlier, the flight deck was being incessantly whipped by a non-trivial amount of wind, but as much as the Second Child welcomed a moderate dose of dramatic sea breeze to accentuate her dramatic entrance, as it was customary for television-worthy badass heroes, the boundaries of what she was willing to tolerate were definitely overstepped when one bout of not-so 'gentle Zephyr' subjected her dress to the same treatment as Touji's cap.

Of course, miss Shikinami's dress was more limited in its freedom of movement, courtesy of two orderly little bows on its straps, but those didn't keep it's lower half from being blown to new heights and revealing her underpants – with the side effect that all three boys got treated to a generous view of said small piece of white cloth and its immediate surroundings.

Corporeal punishment followed on the spot.

**SLAP! SLAP! SLAP!**

A very unhappy-looking Shinji and one positively furious Touji were left with bright-red hand prints on their faces to confirm that the Second Child was indeed as unpleasant as their first impressions had led them to believe.

Even Kensuke, whose attention had been focussed on a warship _behind_ the terrifying girl an only turned in her direction by chance had not escaped a beating, although this only became apparent once he put down his camcorder. It was hard to ascertain whether his discouraged expression owed its existence to acute facial pain, or his grief over the now broken camera lens.

Touji however was significantly more hot-headed than both his friends, and demanded an explanation, since he hadn't exactly _asked_ for that stupid gust of wind, and certainly didn't have any desire to see her sleazy underwear: "What the hell was _that_ for?!"

"Viewing fee for the pretty panorama, of course. Do you think it's for free?" came the caustic reply. The lady was obviously quite sure of herself, not to say overtly swanky, and apparently not remotely interested in veiling her unfounded hostility.

Touji was distinctly pissed. Who did she think she was? She dressed like a bitch, acted like a bitch, and now, she even insisted on being paid like a bitch. And to boot, his cap was now lost for good, blown overboard when that crazy shrew stepped away from it to hand out her physical assaults.

"Well them, then I won't be stingy and show you my gratitude!" Touji retorted, now finally ready to explode, and swiftly proceeded to pull down his own pants, boxer shorts included – As he might have gathered from his friends' sighs as they averted their faces, this wasn't exactly the smartest of moves.

Misato found the juvenile swaggering faintly amusing.

After Touji's face was provided with a second hand print, Asuka marched past him like he was a zero on her left, and turned her attention towards what she considered points of _real_ relevance – First, her scrutinizing eyes searched her immediate surroundings for a girl her age, but they couldn't find any.

"What a surprise. Looks like the commander's little pet that gets to pilot unit zero didn't feel like gracing us lowly mortals with her presence." she scoffed. Only now did she deem the three boys worthy of getting reflected in her eyes again and probed each of them with an analytic glare.

They could practically feel how she glued the words 'clown', 'nerd' and 'loser' to their foreheads.

"And which of you three _jokes_ sucked up to daddy to get to play with Unit One?"

She pierced both his Shinji and Kensuke with her icy irises, but neither of them really dared to answer. Only now did she recall Touji's existence and turned to Misato in protest: "Please, don't tell me that _THIS_ idiot is the famous Third Child!"

"Don't worry. It's him. Over here."

Misato, who already seemed pretty used to the female EVA pilot's fierce temper, casually nodded her head in Shinji's direction, upon which he immediately wished he could disappear through the deck of the ship.

He really didn't know how to handle... this girl's very... _direct_ personality, especially if she was saying... _these_ kinds of things... He'd have to properly _know_ his father, or at least talk to him on a regular basis, before he could even begin to think of 'sucking up' to him, and while he had no clue why _he_ of all people had been selected to pilot that stupid mecha thing, he certainly never _asked_ for it, nor was he all that thrilled about having to risk his life in fights against giant monsters that played with the factors in E= mc squared like they were lego bricks. In her defense, she had no way of knowing his circumstances, nonetheless, her words were hurtful – but she wasn't done in the least, oh no, she was was only just starting:

Shinji probably twitched in fear when she erected her full height directly before him and pointed her outstretched right arm and index finger straight at his chest.

Her first impression of him was anything but positive:

**"Say, are you an idiot?!"**

Shinji looked at her with big eyes, unable to formulate a reply.

He didn't claim to be any sort of genius, but...

"I've seen recordings of all your so-called 'battles'! Although I mistook them for some joke from the PR department at first. In all of my life, I've never seen an useless, cowardly _SLUMP_ of your caliber! It seems you're too idiotic to follow even the simplest of orders! It's hard to believe that the entire world, including my person, very nearly went down the drain several times over just because _you_ were too busy shivering in fear! Last time was the worst, you even had to get your ass saved by a _girl!_ "

Shinji looked back at her in unhappy silence.

He couldn't exactly deny her accusations, and the past battles certainly weren't anything he was _proud_ of or would let himself get cocky over, he got that beaten out of him pretty fast. But at least they had been something he could look back at as an adversity he had mastered, or at very least survived.

To hear all he had lived through in the last weeks reduced to such insufficiency was not pleasant... but on the other hand, he knew very well that he hadn't exactly smeared himself with glory – If he tried to apply objective reason to this, he could easily see how the effort that all this had cost him 'on the inside' could not be expected to count, least of all in the face of an imminent apocalypse.

This was a sobering experience.

But the Second Child didn't seem to feel like she had humiliated him quite enough: Without leaving him the time to even hang his head in shame, she kicked his legs off the ground from under him in the fraction of second, leaving Shinji spread over the ground after an unpleasant landing.

By the time he sat up again, she was already standing over him, practically pushing her skirt into his face, her hands at her hips, looking down at him with nothing but contempt.

"You're not even alert! How did a complete _weakling_ like you ever get chosen as an EVA pilot? It really IS just your father's influence..."

* * *

To be honest, Misato probably would have been a whole lot more imposing if she hadn't scribbled over her age, weight and measurements on her security card. Not being visibly hungover on photo day might also have helped her case, and her extremely colorful company probably wasn't that productive in furthering any appearance of authority on her part: Touji was sneaking a 'discreet' glance at her butt, Kensuke went back to ecstatically filming everything ("A real man always carries a replacement lens!"), and then, there was Shinji, who was sticking close to Misato because he was somewhat afraid of having to stand next to the girl who had just wiped the floor with him.

But they weren't the only reasons for the sour mood of the fleet's superior officer, who wasn't ashamed to show her just how unwelcome she was after returning her 'interesting' security card.

"Aha. I had mistaken you for some boy scout leader at first."

"Thank you for your warm and agreeable welcome." Misato replied poisedly, keeping up the superficial politeness with only a slight bit of amusement shining through, without ever making it less than obvious what she _actually_ meant to say.

"Yes. And thank you for bringing even more brats for us to babysit." The Admiral murmured, not hiding his vitriol at all.

As if on cue, one of the aforementioned 'brats' could be seen blissfully dancing across the background, waving around his camera like he was in some sort of otaku paradise.

"In any case, we are still grateful for your assistance in the transport of Unit Two." Misato pulled out a clipboard and removed several pages from it. "Here are the specifications for the EVA's power supply in case of an emergency activation."

The officers cast suspicious glares at the papers, and the Admiral, to whom they had been handed, didn't even bother skimming through them – His opinion had been firmly in place from the very beginning: "Like _hell_ will I let you activate that _plaything_ in the middle of the ocean!"

"As I said, it's only a precaution in case of emergency." Misato clarified. "The EVA is very precious, after all."

"So precious that they had to divert the entire pacific fleet for its protection? I'd like to know just when the UN forces became a delivery service!"

"I'd say that was when a certain organization was formed." the first officer opined, every bit as frank about his dissatisfaction as his superior had been. "Even you will have to admit that mobilizing the _entire fleet_ just to guard that plaything is hardly appropriate!"

"You're right. I would have preferred an additional squadron of aircraft." Misato countered with a smile, unfazed by the stream of provocations.

She pointed another stack of paperwork in the Admiral's general direction.

"Please sign these forms."

"Not yet." the officer sharply clarified.

This time, Misato _did_ require some effort to keep her features from twitching.

She could hardly believe her ears – First the Jet-Alone bastard, and now _this._ Did someone write 'please to your best to be an uncooperative jerk in my presence' on her forehead the last time she overdid the beer ever so slightly?

"The cargo, including its pilot, has been under our jurisdiction ever since we picked it up at the third branch in Germany, and as long as it stays that way, we will _not_ let you do whatever you please. You can count on that."

"And when do you intend to relinquish that jurisdiction?" Misato inquired.

"No sooner than we arrive at the port in Neo-Yokosuka. As long as we are at sea, you'll have to follow our orders!"

"I see." Misato affirmed, her smile not fading for as much as a single second. "But just in case, I'd like to remind you that I as a member of NERV am authorized to relieve you of your command in emergency situations."

Silence.

The only sounds that could be heard were the waves, and Kensuke's absent-minded gushing over the 'supermegacool' steering wheel as he once again frolicked straight across the scenery.

"Cool!" Touji commented, his reddened face betraying the less than safe-for-work thoughts that had accompanied his observation of Misato's well-practiced pokerface skills.

Even Shinji, who had grown quite desensitized to her 'coolness' due to frequent exposure to what she looked like when she climbed out bed in the morning, couldn't help but look impressed – Even the Second Child was looking in Misato's direction.

"She almost sounded like Ritsuko-san..." Shinji realized.

It seemed like absolutely nothing could possibly put a crack into that superior, professional smile of hers – except for that one single thing that had just entered the bridge and added a comment of their own: "Wow. You're as courteous as ever!"

All eyes darted to the bridge's secondary entrance.

The Second Child, in particular, instantaneously turned ninety degrees, although her entire demeanor kept spinning for yet another ninety: Of all sudden, she was blushing all over her uncannily kensuke-oid expression of utmost adoration, and excitedly waved in his direction like she was a little kid about to meet Santa Claus: "KAJI-SEMPAI!"

Half standing in a doorway that seemed far too small to him was a tall, broad-shouldered man whose name was ostensibly 'Kaji', who casually waved back and addressed them all with a nonchalant "Hi!".

He looked _exactly_ how you would imagine someone whom even the Second Child would label as a worthy mate: Like some kind of intrepid movie hero.

He was roughly around Misato's age, wore his pants loose-fitting, his dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up and the tie slightly loose, resulting in an overall 'look' that was surely stylish, but not bourgeois. He might as well have worn a T-shirt that said 'Hello, my name is Mr. Cool' – no, his current outfit probably got that message across way better than all T-shirts of this world could have managed, and he could as well have been dressed like a hobo and still steal the entire room's attention with a single wink, his debonair pose alone was enough to put James Bond himself to shame.

He was so ridiculously good-looking that he could drive people to suicide with his face, and in case there were any more doubts that this fellow was only inches away from dying of testosterone poisoning, they would have been extinguished by the mere mention of his classical action hero designer stubble – and yet, all that androgen didn't seem to have affected his full head of long, ash brown hair, which he obviously wore in one of the coolest hairstyles ever devised by man: A ponytail. A goddamned _ponytail_! Why did it have to be a ponytail?

All he was missing was a leather trench coat, those classical midnight sunglasses and a giant motorbike.

Some kind of primal instinct that had been lingering about in Shinji's DNA ever since his distant ancestors had been climbing around on trees in sunny Africa frantically declared some time of Alpha-Male-Alert, which once again reminded him what a complete and utter zero he must have been in the Second Child's eyes.

Shinji could have given up on life right here and now.

And to think that this day had started so nicely...

But Shinji wasn't the only one to feel somewhat irradiated by the unshaven gentleman's sudden arrival – the Admiral immediately began to bark out complaints and clarify that the resident James-Bond-ripoff had no place on the bridge.

Misato's reaction was also fairly enlightening – She didn't seem to be seeing this exemplary specimen for the first time, but certainly wished to have seen him for the _last_ time. Shinji wondered how many hitherto unknown acquaintances of Misato they were going to run into today, and whether all of them would be so brazenly _cool_.

As far as Misato herself was concerned, it was probably enough to state that her expression gradually transformed from the very image of abject shock to the physiognomic equivalent of a pleading "Oh no!".

Immediately, she ordered the supposed 'boy scouts' out of the room and then stormed off in an attempt to put as many meters between herself and this Kaji person as logistically possible, closely followed by Shinji (who was grateful for every centimeter between himself and all the crazy), Touji (who was not quite satisfied with the progression of the 'redevouz' so far) and Kensuke (whom they had needed to collect from a remote corner of the bridge and still kept filming everything).

Kaji himself also went for the exit with the Second Child following close behind, leaving only the officers to shake their heads in disbelief.

"And they really expect _this lot_ to be the saviors of humanity?" the Admiral complained.

The first officer sighed. "Times change. By the looks of it, the committee is putting all its hopes in that robot thing..."

"That children's toy?!" The Admiral glared out of the windows, toward another aircraft carrier where the Evangelion in question was being stored under a large, white tarpaulin. " _Our_ budget gets cut all the time, and then, they throw all that money right out of the window for this kind of _nonsense!_ "

* * *

Unfortunately, Misato's wish to maximize the distance between herself and Kaji was not granted, much like the boys' desire to avoid any further encounters with the Second Child for the sake of their health – Instead, they ended up a lot closer than any of them was comfortable with. Almost as if fate had decided to step on their fingers in every way possible today, the only way down the the canteen turned out to be a single elevator, because the 'Over the rainbow' didn't happen to be 'a goddamn tourist canoe' as the Admiral had delicately put it. The plaque claiming that it was intended to carry eight people must have been referring to the lifting strength of the machines and not the cabin's dimensions, which were already decidedly... crammed after the insertion of six passengers, four of which weren't even fully grown, which was a _very_ friendly euphemism for a state that was more comparable to that of the canned sardines that Shinji occasionally fed to his feathered flatmate.

Misato still made a honorable attempt to position herself was far from Kaji as the limited amount of space allowed and, for the time being, contented herself with glaring daggers at his painfully handsome visage. Touji had found himself unintentionally and quite unelegantly promoted to some kind of human sucker mouth fish when the resulting chaos pressed him against the glass doors, while the Second Child had claimed the corner next to Kaji and demonstratively refused to look at the other passengers in the lift, her chin turned upwards for emphasis.

Shinji had once again fallen victim to his uncanny ability to attract awkward situations like a magnet and magically draw ungodly amounts of naked female flesh and/or breasts, in this case, Misato's breast between which he was pretty much being smothered after a mutually unplanned, unintended contact. To their credit, they were nicely warm and soft, but still possessed a definite firmness like a brand new pillow, and Misato's personal scent could be sensed through the dress – The only reaction Shinji was capable of was a slight reddening of his cheeks.

Only Kensuke was apparently perfectly content with the corner he'd ended up in and happily filmed whatever there was to film in an elevator shaft.

But if the fates did insist on forcing her to waste her time being stuck with that brainless macho ape, Misato would take it upon herself to purge him of any illusions that she was doing so willingly:

"What in the world are you even doing here?" she demanded to know.

"I'm on a business trip to Japan and decided to accompany Asuka along the way." he explained, skillfully ignoring her hostile tone without ever dropping his charming smile, inadvertently staging some sort of ironic reversal of the earlier situation with the officers.

"I should have expected something like this..." Misato lamented.

As if to further the overall level of discomfort, a sway of the boat then happened to combine with the motion of the elevator in such an opportune manner that, as far as the inside of the lift was concerned, it resulted in both females loudly exclaiming the words "HEY! DON'T TOUCH ME!" to which the for once completely accidental 'perverts', more specifically, Touji and Kaji, responded by unanimously asseverating their innocence.

And since they were all leaning forward to make sure that their screeches would be hurting the other party's ears _properly_ , poor Shinji found himself caught in the crossfire, squeezed even tighter into Misato's shapely chest. Despite his dubious fortune, the Third Child tried his best to keep his balance in order to avoid another debacle in the style of ill-fated visit to Ayanami, and, since he didn't have much in the terms of athletic skill or assertiveness, did little else aside from squeezing his eyes shut and hoping that he would be delivered from his... situation before he ended up squashed, suffocated or deaf from all the shouting, not to think of the possibility of a more... embarrassing reaction to his current... location. He counted himself lucky to have survived until the glass doors of the cramped elevator finally opened and allowed its passengers to stumble out with varying degrees of inelegance, although he did have to admit that he sort of missed the warmth of Misato's chest.

That Touji couldn't quite avoid an unintentional meeting with the ground (and promptly got himself titled as 'too stupid to walk' by a certain redhead) reminded him all too clearly how closely he might just have avoided a repetition of that unfortunate incident.

Once Misato had ensured they wouldn't kill each other on the spot, everyone involved moved on to the tables to have their lunch, where Touji and Kensuke displayed an impressive sprint in order to claim both seats next to Misato's – which she didn't mind in the slightest as long as it kept a certain stubble-faced individual away from her. To compensate, he placed himself straight _across_ from her, bridging the physical distance without invitation.

The more he leaned forward, propped up by his strong, masculine arms, the more Misato recoiled, retreating back into her chair. The Second Child immediately seized the seat next to Kaji, leaving Shinji no choice but to place himself next to her, as carefully as he could muster and, obviously, leaving a wide safety margin.

Lucky for him, she was all too busy eying the exchange between Kaji and Misato with suspicious, displeased eyes to bother taking note of his presence. Touji, too, gave off the impression that his mood would have been brighter if he and Kensuke had their 'sweetheart' to themselves.

"Well?" Kaji asked, utilizing a tone that should have been reserved for a close associate, concealing his true feelings behind his charming smile. "Are you seeing anyone?"

Misato vehemently refused to look at his face – apparently, she was trying her best to make him understand that she wasn't the slightest bit interested in her advances, and appreciated them as much as a bullet to the chest. Was he some sort of... Stalker, or unwanted Admirer of Misato's?

Shinji wished he could claim to have adequate knowledge of Misato's life – Sure, they had reached a point where they would easily act relatively natural around each other, or as close to 'natural' as either of them ever got, anyways, but all she'd ever told him about her life before his arrival was that she had only just moved in herself at that time. By now, he had been able to gather that she probably used to work in Germany before that, given that she knew the Second Child, but didn't seem to have seen her in a while.

"I don't know how this is any of your business!" she brusquely answered.

"That hurts. For real."

Kaji shifted himself into a somewhat less pushy posture, perhaps feeling a genuine sense of defeat somewhere behind the aura of coolness that he didn't dispel even now.

Neither Touji nor the Second Child seemed particularly happy about the coloration in his tone of voice.

All the while, Shinji pondered what their exact connection might be. Stalker, admirer, or perhaps old friend who has never quite understood that it was all platonic on her side?

Possibly a meddlesome ex-boyfriend?

Whatever his past with Misato may be, he proceeded to take a sip from his coffee cup with a marked pretense of huffiness, before turning towards the other occupants of the bench he sat on. This, of course, caused the terrifying girl's face to light up for a moment, in hopes that he might finally be turning his attention back to her – but the sweet reality was that he was looking past her to face Shinji of all people. "...I've heard you have been living with Katsuragi. Is that so?" he asked in his typical, exuberant ways.

"Y-Yes." Shinji confirmed as polite and friendly as his shyness allowed. This man, too, seemed to have a very... direct way of speaking to people, but since he hadn't beaten Shinji up yet (unlike a certain other person who seemed to consider it a normal way of greeting people), he was glad to take this as a sign of mercy and kindness.

Mostly, he was a bit impressed with his ability to act this laid-back in rooms full of rather explosive people, and wished he could be more like that himself. If he was more like Kaji, he might have a much easier time talking to Ayanami. If your level of sheer coolness was sufficient to not only tame ferocious beasts such as the Second Child, but have them fall to your feet, wining the affections of a comparatively harmless, nice girl should be a peace of cake...

Too bad that nothing about Shinji could ever justify such confidence.

He couldn't even fathom how Touji and Kensuke had ever arrived at the conclusion that he was 'popular with the girls' – Now _this_ was the living image of a glorious Don Juan, this Kaji person or whatever he was called, with his masculine facial stubble, his sly grin, that playful glint in his endless dark eyes and the brashness of his conspiratorial purr: "You must know, I'm an old friend of hers... So, tell me... does she still toss around in bed and leave her sheets in a mess?"

An ex-boyfriend.

 _Definitely_ an ex-boyfriend.

The mildly traumatized visages of everyone involved were very much worthy of Homeric laughter; Most were aimlessly gesticulating with their arms, the Second Child, in particular, seemed to have frozen into a statue, and Misato nearly fell out of her chair.

"In... In bed?" Kensuke repeated with notably reddened cheeks.

Shinji, too, was rather... impressed, not necessarily in a positive way. No matter how much of a 'baby' his friends might consider him to be, that particular... allusion... did not go over his head, although he could just as plausibly be talking about the sphere of disarray that tended to percolate her room from her bed outwards. Shinji certainly _hoped_ that this was what he meant, because, if he meant the other thing-

"WHAT ARE YOU IMPLYING THERE?!" Misato bellowed angrily after she had managed to snap out of her initial stupor, punctuating her words by slamming her first on the table and, in the process, sending her coffee cup on a short flight that nonetheless caused a sizable stain in the tablecloth.

"I see! So she hasn't changed at all! Right, Ikari Shinji-kun?"

The older man deviously winked at the boy.

Misato's expression progressively transformed into a proof of utter desperation.

"Ehh..." Shinji began, leaning forward to look past the still-frozen Second Child. "I'm surprised that you know my name..."

Kaji found that question rather curious and playfully brandished his index finger. "Why so humble? It shouldn't be surprising, considering that you're pretty much a celebrity in our circles."

It was the word 'celebrity' that roused the Second Child from her salt-pillar-like state. Because her head was turned towards Kaji, Shinji couldn't really make out her expression. Meanwhile, Kaji continued to elaborate: "You are the only one who ever succeeded in moving an EVA without any kind of prior training. The famed Third Child."

Kaji raised two more fingers to allude to the boy's numeric designation - "I... I just got lucky..." Shinji managed to produce, twirling his fingers to soothe a his self-consciousness.

He didn't really know what to do with this kind of praise, and neither did he feel like he really deserved it, given that he didn't have the slightest clue what exactly had made the EVA react to him.

Still, it _was_ nice to get a little acknowledgment in return for his suffering, especially from an older, wiser, more experienced man... Some of his less pleasant experiences had been hard to even process, so it was certainly motivating to hear this, especially after having his admittedly meager, but hard won achievements stomped into the dirt by his new coworker.

For Shinji, this was yet another experience he never knew before – If... if someone like Kaji was saying this, it probably _meant_ something. He looked like the sort of person who would... know what they were talking about. Shinji guessed that it was another confirmation that he wasn't alone, that the whole organization was working on this and that his contributions _mattered_ to them.

He wondered if it would feel somewhat like this if his father were to praise him, perhaps it would be like this experience, except much amplified by his long, long wait for the words in question.

"Luck is part of your destiny!" Kaji explained just as he was about to rise from his seat. "This sort of thing is commonly called _talent_. It's an asset like any other."

...talent?

"Well then, see you around!"

This was new, too.

Despite all the unpleasant events that has marred this day so far, Shinji was beginning to feel that his anticipation hadn't been completely in vain. He didn't think he'd ever looked himself that way, or noticed anything particularly special, much less anything that could be referred to as _talent_. So far, he'd been convinced that he was thoroughly unremarkable if not inept in all skills one could think of, and to be honest, he still didn't consider his battle skills an exception, but if there were people who were... satisfied with his results, then having ruined his chances with a girl who was going to become a comrade of his. So what if she had her opinion stiffly formed before she ever saw his face? It wasn't just Kaji who thought he was making valuable contributions, either. Misato and his friends had also showed him that they thought he could pull this off. The opinion of an experienced adult spectator and the people he cared about should be weighed higher than that of some obviously overconfident, unlikeable stranger, right?

Although he still didn't feel completely at peace with just _ignoring_ the opinion of someone he'd be working with on a regular basis, even if he _had_ only just met her.

Regardless, he did try to bid his farewell with a genuine, if tentative smile.

Then again, that made him just about the only person in the room (apart from Kaji himself, who was already halfway out the door) who looked anything close to pleased – Touji and Kensuke were still recovering from the initial shock, the Second Child, who followed her older companion straight on cue, demonstratively averted her eyes from the rest of the lot, except for Shinji, at whom she had been glaring daggers ever since he had somehow drawn the attention of the object of her affections, which was apparently tantamount to some kind of capital offense in her book, and Misato had supported her head with her elbows and clawed her fingers into her hair, complete with mumbled pleas for all of this to turn out to be some kind of prank or nightmare.

* * *

"So? What do you think of Ikari Shinji-kun?"

"Booooring!" the girl replied as she absent-mindedly played around on the ship's outer guardrail, almost mildly indignant. "...I can't believe they chose such a disappointing loser to be the Third Child..."

"Don't judge a book by it's cover." Kaji advised. "After all, he single-handedly killed two angels, and not only that, when confronted with sudden combat with no previous training, he immediately reached a synchronization rate of over 40%!"

"I-Impossible!" the young redhead exclaimed, staring at Kaji with wide, shocked eyes.

Not even she... could have pulled this off. She had been certain that she had nothing to fear when she saw what kind of _wimp_ the supposed famous Third Child had turned out to be, but what if he was not nearly as harmless as he looked?

Just now, she had been disappointed that she wouldn't get the chance to best a proper rival, but now... No. The Second Child refused to classify that idiot as a potential thread just because he'd had a little bit of beginner's luck – His oh so extraordinary synch rate was still miles below hers, and the brat himself was positively _useless._

Hell would freeze over sooner than that weakling would stand any chance at getting in her way, and she felt a spontaneous surging of a need to make this v _ery clear_ to him – if not for anything else, then to make Kaji notice her and t show her that this supposed 'natural' he was trying to pair her off with was _way_ below her league.

Blowing her older companion a kiss as she departed, she stormed off to show that pathetic amateur just _who_ he'd picked a fight with.

* * *

In the meantime, Misato, whose mood was greatly improved by Kaji's absence, was currently riding an escalator towards the surface of the ship since Kensuke had decided that there was something on the portside that he really wanted to film.

The Third Child seemed similarly relieved to be away from his fellow pilot and stuck close to Misato, while his two friends were standing a little further down.

"Oh dear, that Admiral big shot was pretty sure of himself!" the tanned, tracksuit-wearing teen complained, in part for the purpose of actual venting, but also with the thought of scoring a few extra points with Misato.

"A massive ego is almost a necessary job requirement in his line of work" she answered, her amused smile nourished as much by the subject of their conversation as by the boys themselves. "Just try not to take him too seriously."

"The other one wasn't too humble either." Shinji commented, more good-natured than seriously irked. "I mean Kaji-san."

"Oh yes!" Misato retorted, with significantly more of a deprecatory edge to her voice. "He always insisted on making a complete _joke_ of himself _._ That _idiot!_ "

This wasn't exactly what Shinji had meant, but since she obviously didn't seem inclined to talk about him, he decided to stick with that answer.

But then, the universe seemed to remember that the event of Ikari Shinji being pleased and content for more than a few minutes was supposed to violate some yet unknown natural law, and scrambled to ensure that it wasn't caught slacking off, which it did by rapidly throwing some more trouble his way, and having it loudly announce its presence to secure his attention: "Hey, Third Child!"

Looking up in bewilderment, he followed the escalator to its end, where he was awaited by a red-hired girl in a short yellow dress that bared much of her long, athletic legs that seemed to have been drawn by a skilled artist in an attempt to create something that would mock this flawed world with its unattainable perfection.

"Come with me!" She demanded, her body language making it clear that she wouldn't accept any 'Nos' or 'buts'.

Before he'd even reached the end of the escalator, she firmly grabbed Shinji by the wrist and dragged him after her.

Their path led them to a small, lifeboat-like vehicle that she somehow knew how to operate without the slightest delays, and with it, all the way across to one of the other ships, on which a large, pavilion of white tarpaulin could be made out from afar – and Shinji already suspected what must have been hiding beneath it, even though he would have preferred it greatly if he wouldn't have been struggling to catch his breath by the time they reached the boat, feeling pushed to the limit just from keeping up to the headstrong girl's steadfast pace, and really wishing the were a lot more firm and stable structures separating him from the poisonous red waters.

It was pretty much beyond him what was currently driving this girl or what she planned to do, or why she didn't just avoid him if she so obviously couldn't stand him. Why would anyone go out of their way just to bring further unpleasantness upon themselves and others? Shinji couldn't claim to be a particularly passionate person, so he couldn't say he understood, but after seeing this girl in action, he was no longer all that sure that this would be a desirable thing.

Either way, the self-proclaimed warrior girl ultimately led him to the other ship's deck, where she boldly gripped the tarpaulin and revealed the cargo beneath to the light of the day.

What could she possibly be expecting him to say, in regards to something like this?

"Nice color." Shinji remarked when he couldn't think of anything better. "I didn't know that EVA 02 was bright red."

The varnish on the armor plates was indeed of a very intense, conspicuous color that could reliably be expected to draw all eyes to itself. At this point, it was impossible to miss that this must have been her favorite color, in case the watch, the shoes and the interface clips didn't make it sufficiently obvious. Personally, he'd always been reluctant with such strong, bright colors – he didn't necessarily dislike them, but he'd feel uncomfortable if he were wearing seething that was likely to draw attention, that stood out, yes, provoked a reaction. He preferred to stay quietly in the background and have his peace, but it hadn't taken him long to notice that his new co-worker was his exact opposite in that respect, although he supposed that it would have be easier to name the ways in which they _didn't_ seem to be as different from each other was the hot, sunny daylight was from the cold darkness of the starry night.

He supposed that there was a certain praiseworthy aspect to that, as well, that endless, unstoppable drive she seemed to possess, how she always went straight for what she wanted. He did not have this capacity; On his worse days, he could hardly summon up the energy to do anything at all, even when he knew he should. In a way, it reminded him of Misato's and Ayanami's determined refusal to let any unpleasant feeling or physical barrier get in the way of what they were convinced needed to be done – although this was probably the only thing the three of them had in common. Or maybe they were just normal, and he was different in that he was a coward.

Either way, the brash young pilot seemed pretty insistent on making him take a closer look of her firecar-red Evangelion, and admonished him for wasting her precious time.

The Evangelion was being transported on its 'belly', with its head turned on the side and catwalks consisting of plastic plates affixed to a row of plastic barrels forming paths across the basin of purple coolant it was half submerged in.

Unlike the Units Zero and One, EVA 02 possessed a total of four eyes that were furnished with green lenses, and two orange, horn-like protuberances on the crown of its head, which gave it the vaguely demonic appearance that seemed to be typical for the bio-mechanical god-machines.

The slender girl's sudden, unannounced and completely dauntless leaps from one part of her red giant to the next seemed no less superhuman, given that she seemingly reached its tip on its back in a few casual, practiced motions and only turned back down to stare at Shinji from up above – Apparently, she really enjoyed looking down at people.

But where others may have been preoccupied with feeling insulted, Shinji couldn't hold back a certain sense of awe.

She hadn't expected this kind of stunt and nearly tumbled off the barrel-bridge himself between the kinetic energy left behind by her jump and his own disbelief, and had stuttered something about how she should be careful while she proudly displayed either the athletic achievements of military training to which her deceptively slim body owed both its trim figure and its exceptional physical prowess and catapulted herself to building-like heights with only the force of her strong limbs, chiding him for expecting that 'everyone else would be as much of a wimp' as he was, especially considering that she'd had varied combat training.

But once she had taken her beloved place on the summit, she was wholly occupied with the very reason she had come her: Her Evangelion.

"The color isn't the only thing that is different about Unit Two! The Units one and Zero were still part of the development process, a prototype and a test model – That they could be synchronized with a complete newbie is the best proof!"

So she was right back to trivializing each and every of his achievements – had she honestly dragged him all the way here just to scoff at him?

Perplexed, Shinji looked up to her and wondered what exactly she might be expecting of her, and what he'd ever done to her to warrant this.

"But Unit Two is different!" its designated pilot continued, performing a wide, sweeping motion with her right arm like a saleswoman pitching her product.

"You could say that my model is the first _proper_ Evangelion, the final, full-fledged result of the program!"

Just as the Second Child was done gloating about her EVA, the entire ship was shaken up by a jolt of considerable strength which sent the surface of the coolant basin into motion. While Shinji had to trouble to maintain his balance on the swaying, floating bridge, the girl before him easily remained upright, never mind that she was standing high on the inclined surface of a red giant that was never intended to be walked on.

"What happened?" He asked in confusion, and the answer, too, assured him that he was in fact dealing with an implacable professional that he hardly compared to: "Underwater shock waves!" she immediately recognized. "There must have been an explosion nearby!"

* * *

Immediately, Asuka descended with a swift chain of jumps, just as fearless and elegant as on her way up, and rushed right past Shinji to get to get outside, her bragging quickly forgotten once a potential serious situation presented itself – But Shinji's expression was just as severe, his mind racing behind a mask of forced stoicism – An explosion, in the middle of the ocean. And there was an Evangelion present on this ship. He knew full-well what this could mean, and hoped from the bottom of his heard that he was mistaken, but the very real possibility of an... angel attack was nothing he could afford to ignore.

It had been roughly a week since the last one, so the next one could very much be due already, which meant that all the hopes, expectations and the hard work of thousands of people, including the few that were particularly dear to him, were now at stake once again, along with the life and fate of humanity and every single living thing on this planet.

Shinji took a brief moment to order his thoughts and pull himself into a manageable state and repeat the many, many reasons why running away was not an option to himself in his thoughts, then he rushed after Asuka, who had already reached the guardrails and leant past them to spot the source of the disturbance.

Her trained eyes searched the agitated waves for the reason they existed.

Shinji, too, soon arrived beside her and concluded that his fears had come true: "This is..."

Before their very eyes, one of the other aircraft carriers went up in flames, leaving behind a gigantic, cross-shaped pillar of light that was accompanied by by strangely colored, approximately mauve vapors. Something undefined was shooting through the red waters like a torpedo, fast enough to leave torrents of foam in its wake, and it was picking off the ships one by one, blowing them up before they had any chance to pose the slightest bit of resistance.

There was no more room for doubt.

"It's an angel!" Shinji concluded. "It _must_ be!"

"W-What? A _real_ one?"

In that instant, the entire illusion of competence was gone from her face, and Shinji was brought face to face with the realization that, despite all of her adulation and talk of her supposed exquisite military training, this girl had never seen combat before.

If anyone was the 'expert' in this situation, it would have to be _him_.

And that wasn't a thought he found particularly comforting – she was right as far as his own lack of professionalism was concerned – but currently lacked the time and resources to change that. If they wanted to save this world, they would have to act fast – But _how?_ They were currently faraway from headquarters, and Unit One, unfortunately, _wasn't_.

"We need... We have to get back to Misato-san and _do_ something!" he quickly scrambled together, for the sake of having, at least, _some_ kind of coherent goal or plan that had chances of working, even if it might not be the best or smartest.

But the girl at his side, who had since gotten past her initial disbelief and stuffed it away behind the wide, sneaky grin of a predator that had glimpsed its chance to strike, had already concocted a plan of her own: "...I think we can dispense with finding Misato."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) Chapter Title is an allusion to the Bleach manga volume titled 'Quincy Archer hates you'.
> 
> (2) I'm going with 'Shikinami' here because I had to pick one, and I just think it sounds cooler. Also, since this has Mari in it, the Theme Naming is a definite feature. This is not a statement about which scenes to expect or not to expect.
> 
> (3) It is easy to forget that for an episode and a half, Shinji & Asuka shared some very reciprocated, very straightforward antagonism, before the more familiar dynamic fully set in... Stuff written from Shinji's perspective is meant to reflect that here a little, hence the depreciating tone at times.
> 
> (4) "Leatha" comes from some biblical phrase but is also a somewhat archaic female first name. I've heard somewhere that 49 is assigned the value/meaning of 'Unification', although it's mostly just a number I consistently have a thing with. 
> 
> (5) As for the descriptions of Asuka and the contrast with Misato/Rei, I was going for a 'judgement of Paris' type of contrast of different appeals and the things they stand for, not any obvious marking of anyone as 'better'. If it came off that way, I've screwed up. I don't think 'worldly' needs to be a pejorative adjective, and it suits Asuka well, for worse, but also for better. Also in the sense that she is at least, always distinctly human, although Shinji hasn't realized this yet. But Sadamoto himself also described her, as far as her superficial first-glance appearance goes, the 'teen idol' of the EVA world. But there is also something potentially self-destructive about this kind of culture/aesthetic which is very... suitable, considering that she ends up starving herself in ep 24. But keep in mind that Shinji is supposed to be, and will keep on being, subtly misunderstanding her. He's pegging her for more of an Aphrodite, for a colder, negative interpretation of her, but any superficiality or seductiveness only ever goes skin-deep with Asuka, she's probably more of a less matronly Hera, a symbol for coexistence despite difficulty and conflict. Asuka's ideal place would not be above, but besides you. 'Seductress', even if it's a misnomer on Shinji's part here, needn't be negative in every context either; It's an experience you can have, not a type of person. But Shinji isn't quite over an innocent/simplifying drive to compartmentalize here. It's less a flaw he has than a lesson he hasn't learnt yet. Also, a certain repetitiveness/evocation between her initial description here and in the last dream sequence is fully intended. Making you feel Shinji's sense of déjà-vu, or something like that. Also, the solar motif! That was important to me, too. Rei = Moon and Misato = Earth meets Asuka = Sun. (Shinji = Stars wasn't a thing back when I wrote this... Neither did I know about that Nordic warrior sun-goddess. I would have done something with that if I had known. Yeah, basically, let's get in some more gratuitous mythological motifs besides just the Judeo-Christian ones, basically. )
> 
> (6) On the subject of the military ranks... you just wait.
> 
> (7) All that aside/clarified, I admit that Asuka is simply a character that I have less of a 'feeling' for/grasp on than, say, Shinji or Rei. The last thing I want to do is to get her wrong or give her a skewed portrayal just because she isn't my favorite character. If I fuck up (particularly in scenes that do/will feature her own PoV), please tell me so.
> 
> (8) I deliberately chose not to render Asuka's infamous line with the exact phrasing of 'What are you, stupid' to dillute fond reactions to a familiar cutesy catchphrases, because, words mean things, and especially here at the beginning, it wouldn't symbolize a relationship yet. In the German version, I tried to accomplish this by using 'bescheuert' instead of the more common 'doof' or the 'blöd' the dub used, basically an equally colloquial synonym.
> 
> (9) Onwards, Baka! To the Asukamobile! For truth, justice, and the Tsundere way! This fanfic will be continued in chapter 02: [ASUKA STRIKES]. Because nothing says 'heroic' like your name in ALL CAPS


	21. 02: [ASUKA STRIKES!]

**_Boku-tachi wa hirake au_ **

_Suiteki no you ni, wakusei no you ni_

_Boku-tachi wa hanpatsu shiau_

_Jishaku no you ni, hada no iro no you ni  
_

__-Tite Kubo_ _ _  
_

**_(:)_ ** _  
_

**_We attract each other_ **

_Like drops of water, like planets_

_We repell each other_

_Like magnets, like the colors of our skin_

* * *

Gaghiel, the Angel of fish, was on his way.

As soon as he'd emerged from his chrysalis, he'd listened for steely voices like his own, and departed to follow the loudest one he could hear, ready and eager to claim this world for himself and his brothers, to complete what neither his predecessors nor his honored father could finish.

Now, Gaghiel was – as one might express it in Lillim-terms – not the brightest bulb in the box, and this was reflected in the form he'd chosen: A gigantic, massive body that boasted of raw strength in place of sophisticated trickery with a shape more fit to his father's ocean than to braving the shores occupied by the Lillim, perhaps a sign of a childish personality or a misguided attempt to flatter or impress his origin; Though he would have described this more as "glorifying his name" rather than anything that would imply communication or need on either side, in some ways the angel was not as different from the children he would soon meet in battle than the vast disparities of their outer forms would suggest.

But there was yet another bizarrely-ironic parallel between them, or in this case, between Gaghiel and Shinji in particular: He just got lucky.

The messenger had been following the loud and faraway calls that seemed to be coming from beyond the shore, but thanks to a whim of fate, he crossed paths with a cluster of Lillim vessels on his way there. Originally, he'd meant to remain far beneath them in the protection of the crimson deeps, but as he neared their position, he perceived a small, familiar cry, a voice that seemed to shine in, of, and for itself rather than being directed anywhere – The indistinguishable mark of a being blessed with the fruit of life, much like Gaghiel himself.

As of now, he lacked the knowledge needed to recognize that sign for what it was, but it felt unprecedentedly... familiar and it was _there_.

Driven by some kind of childish curiosity, Gaghiel surfaced, and following the obstinacy born from that same childishness, he tore apart one Lillim vessel after another – For the call he'd heard was too weak, too diffused, to easily pinpoint its exact location – whatever its source was lacked the energy to produce more than localized background static, its presence felt closer to drops of a viscous fluid randomly leaking more than it did to wave patterns being broadcast. The signal was scrambled and scattered, and yet, Gaghiel zealously continued his search – That strange quality he could only describe as a sense of familiarity kept pulling at his instinct like a horseshoe magnet would attract a tiny bit of iron turnings.

…...WHERE...ARE...YOU...

Meanwhile, the humans inside the "vessels" were completely at the angel's mercy. Most likely, the only reason that they kept in motion was their pride demanding that they should at least _look_ like they were doing something to get this situation under control – but not many were fooled.

"Damnit...!" the old admiral cursed, looking through his spying-glass in disbelief. "What is going on out there?!"

And if an uncontrollable situation wasn't the worst a person who earned his living through establishing order could hope for, the bridge was then visited by the last person the admiral wanted to see right now.

Just minutes before, he would have been outright grateful for any chance of a proper battle that would give the rockets in his ships' vaults some proper use before they were inevitably decommissioned as a consequence of budget cuts, but now, he and his troops were being humiliated.

"Greetings! NERV delivery service!" she declared cheerfully, not boasting, but neither hiding that she saw this incident as a confirmation of her earlier points. "Would you like to order information about the enemy, or perhaps some effective countermeasures?"

"We are in the middle of combat! There is no place for civilians on the bridge!"

Misato's smile was replaced by a more serious, somewhat aggravated expression just as one of those kids showed up behind her, and much to the officers' chagrin, it had to be the one with the camera.

"You know, it's just my personal opinion but I think you might be dealing with an angel here."

The admiral tried his hardest to ignore her. "All ships, fire!"

Misato already knew that this man was only wasting time and ammunition – and most likely, he knew that as well. One might think that there was some kind of official meeting of big mouths on this ship.

Speaking of big mouths – or someone Misato might have termed that way – There was another person observing the angel's lengthening trail of destruction with visible signs of alarm: Back in his cabin, Kaji was peering through the shutters with a small spying glass, thoughts racing behind somber dark eyes as the angel mowed down one ship after another – this turn of events was very, very inconvenient right now...

* * *

In the meantime, Misato had personally invited herself onto the bridge, and observed the confrontation unfold alongside Touji and Kensuke. What was taking place out there was too one-sided to be considered a battle.

"Why is the angel even here?" Misato asked herself, sensing a vague unease in her gut. So far, they had all gone directly for Neo Tokyo Three, as far as she knew, because Lillith was buried underneath it. So what could this creature possibly want _here_ , with these old ships in the middle of the ocean? What led it here?

"Could it be... Unit Two?"

* * *

Elsewhere, Asuka had grabbed Shinji by the wrist, and pulled him back into the corridors of the ships as she pleased, without giving him even the slightest indication of where they were going – He was well aware that they had no time for any whimsical drivel now that the angel could tear this ship apart at any given moment, but he couldn't make himself talk back to that crazy girl, who seemed very unlikely to pay him any mind either way.

That she had taken a bag in her favorite color from a crate in her Eva's storage room would suggest that she had at least _something_ resembling an actual plan which Shinji was currently unable to follow for lack of explanations – And since he himself did not have one and probably lacked the ability to concoct one even if he tried, it shouldn't surprise anyone that he kept his quiet, allowed himself to be dragged along and left all the thinking to the so-called 'full-fledged' pilot, but after a while, what little sense of duty and self-respect he'd acquired over the last seven weeks nagged him enough to prompt some resistance: After all, he knew very well that the fate of humanity could depend on their next actions, and this girl, a complete greenhorn at that, did not seem to take this very seriously. All along, she had been talking like EVA battles were some kind of sport for her to excel at.

But since Shinji was as much subject to his personal limitations as all of us, which included being more than a little scared of said "complete greenhorn" (especially considering that his faith in his own capabilities was still rather shaky), his "protests" for the benefit of the actual task at hand turned out fairly unimpressive, if not mostly confused and shorttaken:

"Ehm, uh, where are we going?"

When the Second Child's next move actually resembled stopping to think for a moment, Shinji opened himself up to the hope that he might still receive a sensible explanation of the Second Child's course of action today – but no such luck.

Instead, for unfathomable reasons, she decided to spin around rapidly and drag him in the opposite direction, until they had reached the access point to a stairwell that she'd paid absolutely no heed when they'd ran past it earlier.

Only now did Asuka release his poor, mistreated wrist from her merciless stranglehold.

"Stay here for a bit, yeah?" she commanded, in a tone that made it impossible for the shy boy to reply anything before she could whirl around again and run off with her mysterious bag in hand.

He could only send a half-hearted "...but what are we gonna do here?" after her, which lacked the demanding tone that would have been necessary to make her listen, and thus, Shinji was left standing there with half-outstretched arms.

Resignedly, he let his hands sink and slumped down on the stairs, given that he didn't have any other real choices. He felt vaguely like some little kid whose parents had promised them a surprise, but decided to make them wait in uncertainty beforehand, and Shinji had never handled uncertainty _or_ surprises very well.

What in the world was so hard about letting him know how exactly her current endeavor would keep the angel closing in on them from blasting them all to the bottom of the sea?

The sounds that could be heard from the stairwell were befuddling at best.

What was she doing down there? Had she perhaps forgotten that this ship could be sunk at any moment? Shinji considered calling out to her, but feared that he might make a fool of himself once again by interrupting some useful activity of hers.

One way or another, he would end up insulted and humiliated again...

Nonetheless, the prospect of impending watery death made sure to keep the tension in his nerves rising, and before long, he couldn't stand to just sit tight anymore.

Since it seemed vaguely more useful that pacing around or repeatedly shifting positions, he chose to walk over to the stairwell's handrails and take a look at whatever the Second Child was doing.

Big Mistake.

Because as Shinji's treacherous luck would have it, he found the dress and sinfully sparse underwear he'd previously seen her in hastily scrunched up and thrown over her now open bag, which seemed to have contained a plug suit that was, _of course_ , inescapably bright red – And its owner was just about to stick her arms into the corresponding portions of the suit, which was still wide, loose, and hanging off her dainty little body in a few strategic places.

As if that ill-fated gust of wind hadn't revealed enough, he was now treated to her hair falling past her bare shoulders and a good portion of those hill-shaped mounds of flesh and their incidentally titillating little motions.

The nipples were just barely covered by the plug suit's crimson rubber, but that wasn't fixed in place, and together with the unexpected suddenness of this kind of sight, his inevitable awareness that it could slip aside at any moment made Shinji struggle to keep his... biological functions in check.

With any other lady-person he'd come to know, such as Ayanami or Misato, he would have averted his head in shame just about now, but this time, he just kept staring, frozen in place. At the time, he thought it was mostly because the processes he was trying to stave off were diverting blood from his central thinking organ.

Or perhaps it was a matter of respect, or lack thereof – at the time, he was impressed by Asuka's assertiveness, but not exactly charmed by her as a person. Maybe some part of him has subconsciously decided that a retreat wasn't worth his effort given that her opinion of him could hardly sink any lower than it already way, or maybe, as he would consider in a few dark, dark moments, it might have been some sense of carrying out an act of justified revenge that kept his eyes transfixed on the alluring German girl – whatever it was, it got completely replaced by shame soon enough once she spotted him and immediately began her obligatory cursing: "Stop peeping at me immediately, you disgusting pervert!"

Her order was quite unnecessary as Shinji had already turned to flee and hid behind the upwards reaching flight of stairs.

"Why do all boys have to be braindead peeping toms and butt gropers!" he heard her complain.

With a sigh, Shinji sat back down on the stairs.

Great.

If she didn't hate him before, she definitely did now.

Why did he always end up in such embarrassing situations?

And why was she always yelling at him, anyways?

He just wanted to see what she was up to, she really could have warned him, or really, given him any explanation at all.

That she was putting on a plug suit at least suggested that she hadn't completely forgotten about the angel out there.

The next thing Shinji heard was the characteristic hiss as her suit adapted itself to her thin frame.

What he didn't hear, however, was the quiet sentence she mumbled to herself with an atypically serious expression, or even a hint of real tension:

"...Let's go... Asuka."

This was the moment of truth.

The day she had been working towards for nearly all of her life.

The instant that was meant to justify all of her attitudes and choices, if not her very existence.

In more ways than one, this was the beginning of her battle for the right to remain on this world, and if this Third Child brat was going to get in her way, she was going to crush him so hard that it would squeeze all the juice out of him, without a shred of mercy.

* * *

On the outside, the remaining war ships continued their bombardment of the angel, not that it did any good – they kept firing endless salvos of torpedoes and rockets, but the enemy wasn't even slowed down.

The angel didn't even seem to care about them, didn't adjust its course and kept destroying ships according to some seemingly whimsical pattern that none of the humans could make sense of.

If it was following some kind of priority list, it certainly didn't have anything to do with the weaponry of the ships, which made the obvious all that much harder to overlook despite the officers' best efforts.

"Why hasn't it sunk yet?!" the admiral shouted in disbelief.

"I knew it! That thing can only be defeated by an EVA!"

The fact that it was Touji, the relatively normal one among the boys who'd previously looked at the Evangelion-program with some degree of skepticism, and not, say, his battle-crazy, camcorder-swinging buddy who's finally revealed the emperor's figurative new cloak to be nonexistent, got him quite a few disgruntled looks from the admiral and his first officer – especially because his relative neutrality underlined the fact that he was undeniably right.

* * *

The officers weren't the only ones who had to face an unpleasant reality – Shinji, for instance, was currently forced to confront a situation where Asuka had dragged him all the way back to her Evangelion's storage room, and then thrown her spare plug suit at him.

Looking anything other than happy, Shinji glanced at the importunately red article of clothing in his arms.

This was a _girl_ suit.

Sure, he was aware that those things were made out of flexible rubber which adapted to the wearer's body shape and as such, technically unisex.

But he knew that they were still somehow tailored to the intended user's measurements, and the measurements that had been used to make this one were bound to have been rather... feminine perhaps?

It wasn't as if he had anything against the female sex, per se. Some of his best friends were girls, if Misato and Ayanami counted as such. But that didn't mean that he wanted to wear their clothes – and he most certainly _didn't_ want to wear Asuka's.

It was only her _spare_ suit, but there was still a remote chance that it had been in contact with the more... private bits of her anatomy.

Besides, while wearing something like Ayanami's suit might've been just barely feasible, _this_ model has to plastic caps on its front which Shinji, for all his politeness, could only describe as 'boobie protectors'.

The Third Child _really_ didn't want to put on that plugsuit, but Drill Seargeant... er, Captain Shikinami knew no mercy: All she did when he gave her a pleading look was to put her hands on her hips in a superior manner that clarified once and for all just how little she cared about her fellow pilot's concerns. The gesture accentuated her ample behind which was one of the few places on her body that could've been classified as 'opulent'. She had the sort of perky, round, surprisingly mature-looking butt cheeks that could be seen in magazines. Her unpleasant personality aside, she was almost on par with Misato in the A department and probably won out against Ayanami there, but that was of very little help to Shinji as he was dealing with her front side right now and the parts of her that were meant for talking had yet to produce any sort of explanation.

Instead, he was once again met with her index finger, which she copiously swung around to compound her imperious orders. Her chest, somewhat supplemented in size by the "boob protectors", also subtly jiggled while she did this.

"YOU are coming with ME!"

And as son as she stopped speaking, she turned on her heels and stormed off, leaving the hapless boy standing there all by himself.

Anything but pleased, he realized that he'd have no choice but to make his peace with the boob protectors.

The result looked just as dreadful as he'd expected – Since Shinji had never possessed anything that could have been considered a particularly masculine physique, the suit's design, distribution of padding and boob protectors (after using that word a few times, in started sounding more like a technical term and less like a reason for massive embarrassment, at least in his head) all worked together to create the impression that he'd spontaneously decided to throw his Y-Chromosome in the thrash, but some things couldn't be hidden, especially not in a skin tight suit designed for a rather thin young girl.

It wasn't tight enough to be uncomfortable, but left very little to the imagination – the last thing he needed right now was for Asuka to start making jokes about _that._

Keeping his legs in relative proximity to each other and making an attempt to cover the offending bits with his hands, and – once he'd folded his clothes – tried moving into the direction Asuka had disappeared into, with a pathetic waddle that would have made PenPen proud.

By the time he found Asuka at the end of the catwalk leading to Unit Two, the color of his face had begun to rival that of his borrowed suit. She was casually leaning on EVA 02's power socket, standing on its back near the entry hatch and not showing the slightest quantum of remorse for the humiliation she'd brought upon her male co-pilot.

"Uhm, why exactly are we wearing plug suits again?" he asked, hoping that all of this would be over soon. The Second Child didn't wait a second to continue mocking him, closely followed by further testaments of her recklessness: "Are you an idiot?"

Those were the same words she'd 'welcomed' him with, and something told him that he would be hearing them very often in the near future.

"We're going to beat up that thing with my EVA 02!" she declared, confident and pugnacious. She was barely done speaking when EVA 02's entry hatch opened automatically, and its plug slid outside, ready to be boarded.

Shinji couldn't quite believe what he was hearing.

Apparently, she wanted to jump inside her EVA just like that, and... fight with it?

Right now?

Just like that?

So far, doing this had always required the participation of all those technicians at NERV headquarters and... lots of technical stuff, and this was the first time he heard of anything like two pilots controlling the same EVA – would that even work?

In any case, it seemed unlikely that this girl had ever tried it before.

Once again, he got the feeling that she was seriously underestimating this whole situation – there was no way the two of them could just spontaneously defeat an angel all by themselves, that went against all his experiences from his previous sorties, particularly his first.

"...wait a second... Shouldn't we ask Misato-san for permission or something?"

Granted, his attempts at being the voice of reason turned out rather puny so far.

Try as he might, he would never be a cool, decisive person – much unlike Asuka, who casually dismissed his shaky objections out of hand. "Don't worry!" she grinned, as if she were already feeling her triumph dissolving on her tongue like some expensive chocolate. "We'll ask her right after we've defeated that thing!"

Even when the main hatch opened and revealed the interior of Unit 02's plug, whose cockpit unit looked somewhat different than what he was used from EVA 01 (larger, more spacious, all around shinier, with extra buttons on the levers and no trace of that bridge-like extension he always had to stick his feet into), the Third Child was still far from convinced. Captain Shikinami, by contrast, already seemed to consider the angel as good as exploded:

"So. Now I'm gonna show you what a _trained_ pilot can do. Don't get in my way!"

* * *

In the meantime, the angel had been busy playing "Battleships", while Touji and Misato observed it perplexedly.

It goes without saying that Kensuke was watching it alongside them, of course, filming it as well, but his expression was ore akin to that of a small child on Christmas day.

"Strange..." Misato mumbled, more to herself than anyone else.

"It's almost like it's searching for something."

* * *

But Misato and the boys weren't the only ones watching the spectacle with worry – Kaji's spyglass was still peering through the segments of the blinds that he'd pushed aside, looking not at all pleased, in part because he was privy to the exact reason why this particular angel had struck so far from where its brother had struck –

Next to a few bags with his personal belongings, a few more of his things and the hard-top case he'd purloined from Bethany Base was another such case, varnished in deep red.

The bright color seemed at odds with the ship's rusty cabin walls and Kaji couldn't help but observe that it was the exact color of blood – not at all unfitting when he considered just how much of the ruby life essence had been spilled for or by what was contained within.

"Well, being assaulted by an angel on the high seas was not was I expected!" he spoke into the phone he'd pinned between his ear and his shoulder, hiding his concern behind the flawless poker face he earned his bread with.

The man at the other end of the line – Ikari – was completely calm. "That's why Unit Two is on board. I've even provided you with a spare pilot. If worst comes to worst, escape by yourself."

"I understand."

* * *

Beneath its canvas cover, the afore-mentioned Eva's entry plug had already been inserted and filled with LCL.

Shinji, who was holding onto Asuka's seat from behind, still didn't feel confident about any of this, and it wasn't solely because of his less than dignified outfit.

The prospect of fighting without Misato and everyone else in the command bunkers... he couldn't even imagine how that was supposed to work, and as for the "glorious Captain Shikinami", well, she had pretty much dragged him along for the sole purpose of showing off her 1337 p1lt sk!lz to him, which didn't make her look all that professional.

At least, her ego had assured that he'd be in the plug with her and thus have a chance to intervene if the battle should become too much for her to handle – after all, the fate of humanity was at stake, and so on.

Also, Shinji wasn't enough of a complete savage to let this inexperienced young girl who probably expected EVA battles to be much the way Touji and Kensuke imagined them walk to her doom if he had such a chance to prevent it... even though he had to admit that he wouldn't have insisted to come if she hadn't dragged him along.

Perhaps he should be ashamed of that – On the other hand, it was also true that he might have been more involved about this if she weren't treating him like a cleaning mop.

This would be the first time he'd sat inside an EVA other than his own – ultimately, it felt fairly similar, but there was more of a difference than he would have expected.

He felt as if the inside of EVA 02 felt a great deal cooler and darker, more in the figurative than the literal sense but with the latter of course influencing his perception of the former. There was simply a dismissive, inclement atmosphere dominating both the metaphorical and physical dimensions of the plug, which made him all the more aware of just how strong this half-conscious, inviting feeling of safety and comfort had been inside of EVA 01.

EVA 02 passively allowed him to connect to it, but unlike unit one, it didn't... accommodate for him, or meet him halfway, and his feeling of the EVA's limbs remained much more numbed, sluggish and imprecise. Presumably, all this synch rate and harmonix stuff must have been significantly lower in here.

As much as Shinji could perceive EVA 02's mental expanse, it was an unpleasant, unwelcoming, lifeless sort of place.

He briefly wondered what it might feel like to Asuka.

She had since closed her eyes in concentration and began to give system input commands in a strange, foreign language Shinji could not understand. He presumed that it must be German – was that where she was supposed to be from, Germany?

In any case, her words were followed by the typical flimmering lights of the activation sequence, only for a wall of repetitive red text to appear in place of the interface. Shinji was unfamiliar with the combination of western letters that kept flashing on the walls in bold red capitals, but the beeps that accompanied them confirmed his guess that it had to be the German equivalent of "ERROR".

"An error message... what happened?" Shinji asked with mild concern.

"Thought noise!" she spat back without anything resembling an explanation. "I _told_ you not to get in my way!"

Apparently, she expected him to have memorized all those terms the technical division occasionally threw around, just because he'd been able to move an EVA well enough to land it flat on its face though some unlikely whim of fate.

He wondered if she was aware of how paradoxical this was, given that she'd spent far more time in the service of project E and had, so far, expended nontrivial amounts of time and energy to assure that he wouldn't forget that for as much as a minute.

Thankfully, her highness seemed to be feeling generous for a change, or maybe she was finally sufficiently focused on the battle to be ever mindful of her intentions to pick him on – One way or another, the heavens opened, a beam of light descended, and granted him the unspeakable miracle of actually receiving some sort of answer as to what he had supposedly screwed up: "You've been thinking in Japanese! If you _have_ to think, do it in German!"

While it might have been very considerate of her (by Asuka standards) to offer him some sort of actual solution instead of simply calling him an idiot, this time she might have had legitimate reason to doubt his abilities. What made her think that some average Japanese boy who had been living in a little mountain village until very recently would be able to converse in all of Europe's languages? English might have been halfway feasible, but German?

No choice but to fly the white flag.

That is, if he weren't dealing with no one, but _two_ monsters at the time: The one outside that could send them to the bottom of the sea at any given moment, and the one in the entry plug who was unlikely to accept any lazy excuses, or anything she might liberally term as such.

Despite the fact that he hadn't produced a single German sentence in his life, Shinji made a shaky attempt to oblige her, even though he understandably didn't rate his probability of success very high: "Ah, okay..."

Panicked, he searched his 'memory banks' for anything to do with Germany – His first association were cars, but he didn't have the slightest clue what the German word for "car" might be, and then, there! A spark of hope: "B-Ba... Baumkuuuu-hen..."

"Idiot!" she snapped, forcefully enough to make him recoil.

It was probably superfluous to note that he didn't look particularly pleased.

"Alright! Change systems language to japanese!" she ordered sourly.

While the walls of the entry plug thus began to shine in a variery of colors all over again, Shinji took the time to wonder what else he might have to endure now that this person was to be deployed as an EVA pilot on a regular basis, but then tried to quiet these thoughts to mentally prepare for the battle ahead, given that he bore a certain responsibility as the more battle-experienced pilot.

In the meantime, the interface had appeared around them, with the 'scaffolding' between the screen panels bearing a different color scheme than those of Unit One.

In an instant, both realized what this meant: They were ready to go.

Captain Shikinami didn't hesitate for a second: "Evangelion Unit Two, Launch!"

* * *

Meanwhile, the Children's activities had not remained unnoticed – when the First Officer of the 'Over the Rainbow' reported that EVA 02 had been activated, all eyes immediately turned to the large white covering on the deck of the large flagship 'Othello', under which something seemed to be stirring – both the boys and the First Officer who had just delivered the message immediately turned their heads, during which the latter pulled out some binoculars whereas Kensuke swung around with his camera still in hand, presumably making good use of its zooming capabilities.

Misato seemed to excited about the news that she inelegantly pressed her face to the window pane and immediately sprouted a few words of praise – the Admiral, alas, only reacted with a rather apalled 'What?!' and grabbed the local speaker microphone as soon as he regained his bearings, with all intentions to put an end to what he saw as an useless, childish waste of time: "Abort activation sequence immediately! I said abort!"

He had barely finished speaking when Misato suceeded at squeezing herself past him and wresting the microphone from his hands. "Ignore that!" she shouted right into it without much of a care about the elderly Admiral squirming beside her. "Permission to launch!"

"WHAT?!"

Using his very loud voice and the occasional spray of spit, the Admiral gave Misato a 'friendly' reminder of his continued presence. Making use of the timespan in which she'd reacted to the booming volume in her ears with an involuntary shutting of her eyes, the old officer pushed the Nerv employee out of his field of vision and laid claim to the microphone: "Both the EVA and the pilot are under our command! You can't just do as you like out here!"

"Who cares about the formalities at a time like this?!" protested Misato, who had since slipped out of the naval commander's grasp and continued the embittered war over the microphone.

Although both of them seemed very occupied with their struggle, the First Officer, who unlike the other supposed 'adults', had not forgotten that a battle for the fate of humanity was happening under their noses, decided to inform them that the Evangelion about whose deployment or non-deployment they were currently squabbling was currently fitted with merely B-type equipment – it _was_ ready for activation, but not for much more – and that information was enough to make them overlook their differences for a brief moment and followed the First Officer's example in turning their heads in the same direction that his binoculars had been facing for a while now: Directly toward the transport ship carrying the Evangelion.

Its pilot had since realized their precarious equipment status themselves, and Shinji, who, as the more experienced passenger, felt obliged to act as a voice of reason in the presence of a naïve young girl who was evidently overestimating herself, assumed the thankless task of bringing it to her attention:

"...if we fall into the sea, we're done for..."

Ooops. That did not really sound very much like an authoritative veteran... rather more like a henpecked scaredy-cat. Shinji was beginning to feel like _he_ was the newbie here – which wasn't completely without merit, given that _Captain_ Shikinami _had_ been trained for years, unlike himself, who couldn't even muster a tone of voice firm enough to make the daredevil Second Child spare him a glance.

Her determined, far more combat-ready expressions stayed the same and betrayed no sign that his warning had deterred her in any way.

"Well, if we _don't_ fall, we'll be fine." was her laconic, almost outright annoyed answer.

While Asuka did not pay her co-pilot any heed, at least mission control took some note of him over the intercom, including Misato, whose general excitement indicated that she considered this very fortunate: "Shinji-kun! Are you in there as well?"

Both the tone of her voice and her confidently relieved smile indicated a significant decrease in whatever worries she had not outwardly shown, but very much felt regarding the unexpected surprise battle – she had absolute faith in that 14-year old boy.

The most recent events had left her to choice but to conclude that she once reluctant and not all that stable boy had long since proven his worth.

And with Asuka there to back him up, their odds weren't looking all that bad – She had awaited her first proper combat for years and was far too ambitious to allow for a defeat – though it was probably a good thing to have Shinji mitigating her daring.

Having long since forgotten all about the microphone that both his and Misato's hands still happened to be grasping, the Admiral did not believe his eyes: His poor opinion of Project E went without saying, but unlike Misato, he had only encountered the pilots as a loud, spoiled brat and a rather inconsequential-seeming boy none of which he found particularly trustworthy: "But they're just two kids!", he lamented.

But Misato had many reasons to think otherwise: "They can do it."

The seriousness of her voice left no room to doubt that she had no doubts, either.

Thus, she finally took complete control of the microphone and shouted the final launch order at the top of her lungs: "ASUKA, GO!"

And that was indeed a wise suggestion, for during the time she and the admiral had spent arguing about the chain of command, the lethal game of 'battleship' that had been going on on the crimson waves outside had ground to a halt, for the simple reason that its perpetrator could no longer sense its target's presence, try as he might.

Just as Gaghiel thought to have picked up the definite presence of his origin, his surroundings were inundated by a second, far stronger source of energy that confounded his senses.

Was that his father? The goal of his journey?

No, it was different. It was similar, but it was different.

Something empty. An empty, warped image of his father, enthroned on one of those Lillim-made structures whose purpose eluded him – Was it too the work of the Lillim? Frightening. It was almost as if they had the ability to influence the matter around them however they pleased. Despite their tiny, laughable forms, they were formidable enemies: They could move freely through the red flood that had been created in their father's incomplete attempt to remake this world into something fit for the likes of the messengers, a paradise from which the Lillim should have been barred – But that they would be capable of creating such a perversion... but ach! It wasn't even the Perversion's nature that bothered Gaghiel the most, it was its strong presence, which masked the tiny signature it had been seeking in the first place.

The angel did not need long to decide on a pragmatic solution to its distress: The Perversion had to go!

Disquieting the red waters with the stirring of its mighty fins, the angel of the fish went straight for EVA 02, marking its path with a wild spray of water, advancing faster than any ship mankind had yet managed to build.

"I-It's coming!" Shinji warned, mildly startled from the battle's swift beginnings yet clearly in the process of mentally shifting into 'combat mode'.

Against all logic, the Second Child was wholly unperturbed.

"And go!"

Without wasting another second, EVA 02 departed from the metal it had been resting on, escaping with a powrful yet gracile leap before the ship beneath it was torn to pieces, with the long , white covering it had been hidden under trailing behind it like a giant overcoat.

Far from quartered, the Evangelion elegantly landed on another ship, greatly straining its upper components, without showing the slightest sign that its pilot had spent any extraordinary effort in keeping its balance – She hadn't even needed to use its hands, which were still holding the tarpaulin under which it had been shipped, giving it the appearance of a dignified roman toga.

Her movements had been graceful, almost dainty, as well as very smooth and natural-looking, almost as if she could command the EVA better than her own body (which was saying something) – Shinji doubted that he could produce such fast, fluid movements with Unit One, and even if he could, his lousy reaction time would have thwarted any attempts at such a bold escape maneuver.

"Where'd it go?!" the redhead asked.

In any other situation, he might have complained about having toserve as a human satnav the after she'd spent so much time bragging about how awesome she was and how he mustn't get in her way, but there was a time and a place and this was not it. This was a battle for the survival of humanity; At least one of them had to take this seriously: "Over there!" he answered swiftly, glancing over at the battery gauge which had drawn his attention through a familiar noise that Asuka did not seem very interested in. "Just 58 seconds!" he warned, briefly stumbling over the thought that it was probably 56 by the time he'd finished speaking – Asuka's acrobatics might look very impressive, but they lost all admiration Shinji might have initially conceded to them as he realized that they probably required the EVA to switch to full power– This was _very not good_.

But once Asuka had spotted her target, she seemed to have relegated him back into the category of unnecessary, annoying things barely worthy of her attention, and chided him with a caustic " _I know_!" as if he'd tried to explain to her that things drop to the ground when you let go of them.

Now that she had degraded him to being pure decoration, Captain Shikinami was free to pursue her true passions: Fighting and ordering people around.

"Misato, ready the power cable on the flight deck!" she commanded, not taking her eyes off the angel which was speeding toward her current position.

"Will do!" came the answer from the command bridge, despite the admiral's ineffectual wailing in the background.

Asuka fixed her target with an icy glare, like a consummate hitman who'd just spotted his target. "So," she began, curt and condescending. "Do you like hopscotch?"

Shinji barely had the time to produce a somewhat dumbstruck "What?" before she once again took the initiative without even thinking of gracing him with an explanation.

In a swift, sudden movement, the EVA crouched down, only to shoot into the air with a force that Shinji couldn't have produced is he were struggling to save his own life, soaring through the air like an arrow to land rather precisely on the one bit of free flight deck located on the next ship, which was subjected to some consequential damaged from both her landing and the consecutive jump, during which she finally let go of the tarpaulin altogether like a butterfly discarding its chrysalis.

She did not stop moving for evem an instant: Barely wasting a thought on the ships' crewmen who often only barely escaped the brunt of the impact, she demolished one flight deck after the other, often jumping out of the same fluid movement with which she had landed. Despite the colossal mass she was moving around, she kept her balance as effortlessly as if the EVA were as light as a feather.

She was not merely pulling off a batshit-insane feat in a masterful manner, no, she appeared to be having the time of her life doing it, much unlike Shinji, who clung to the back of the crazy girl's seat while she emphatically announced her success: "EEVA 02 INCOMIIIIIING!"

The red colossus landed on the Over-the-Rainbow's flight deck with hardly a problem and easily caught its balance despite the humongous waves towering around the aircraft carrier.

Even so, some of the aircraft unavoidably ended up tumbling into the sea, which, oddly enough, seemed to bother Kensuke more than the angel currently speeding toward the ship he was standing on.

Shinji however was perfectly aware of the implications concerning his friends' current locations which ensured that he was swift to play his part in avoiding the worst: "It's coming from Nine o' clock!"

Asuka, to her credit, had busied herself the power cable in the meantime: "Switching to external power now!" She plugged the Umbilical Cable into its designated slot, and immediately, the battery gauge stopped its dreadful beeping.

"Successfully switched to external power!"

Once the power supply problem was taken care of, EVA 02 and both its pilots turned their attention to the nearing angel – In Shinji's case with a stern, determined expression, whereas Asuka bore a haughty, bloodthirsty grin which swiftly and efficiently expressed her great anticipation to shoot some holes in the enemy – speaking of shooting: "We don't have any weapons!"

But despite Shinji's atempts to remind her of the facts at hand, it seemed like the german pilot had a brief, prideful answer for everything: "Is the prog knife not a weapon?"

Self-assuredly, she motioned for the knife to be released from its storage compartment in the EVA's shoulder and readied the blade – and not a moment to soon, for the angel had risen from the sea as if to answer her challenge, presenting them with its massive, yellowish body and the mask-like face typical for its kind.

The messenger aimed its charge straight at them, like a predator who had chosen its next victim.

"...it's huge..." Shinji commented, worriedly.

As expected of the 'Ace of the European Forces', 'worry' did not seem to be part of the Second Child's vocabulary, instead, the enemy's dimensions seemed to delight her: "This is just like I imagined!"

"What are they going to do now?" the admiral asked, still feeling like he'd stumbled into a bad action movie. But Misato explained confidently: "According to our experiences, the most efficient way to neutralize an angel is melee combat."

Ready for the afore-mentioned melee, EVA 02 held out its prog-knife before it, but the angel was ready, too, and jumped out of the water like a kind of flying fish, shooting all of its massive, slippery body through the surface with a powerful movement of its fins, to then continue to shoot toward the Evangelion though the air, making it look like a tiny insignificant human that had been foolish enough to pick a fight with a ginormous whale.

The collosal, fish-like being arrived with a thundering sound, with its arrival spelling doom for a couple more military planes, surely much to the chagrin of their owners (and to Kensuke's lament. )

But the angel had overestimated itself: Outside of its element, its massive form wasn't able to move nearly as nimbly as before.

Sluggish and limited by its own weight, the being had been more adapted to the red waters and barely managed to flop about, with any and all of its attempt to get back into the sea being frustrated by EVA 02's tight grip, which held the beast's head firmly in its unrelenting chokehold.

"Well done, Asuka, you stopped it!" Misato praised, her enthusiasm not quite infecting the admiral given that the Prog Knife, which Asuka had let go of to grasp the angel's slippery hide with both hands, had since bifurcated another aircraft.

"Is this supposed to be a joke?" he exclaimed in displeasure. "You wrecked the entire flight deck!"

That complaint might not have been wholly unfounded, but from a pragmatic standpoint, the true problem was that the flight deck hadn't been demolished _enough_. If a particular plane-ferrying elevator at the corner of the ship had only been stuck or jammed, it would have saved everyone involved many grievances. As it was, it gave way once EVA 02's foot slipped onto it as it was wrestling the angel, causing the EVA to lose balance and creating an opening for the creature to launch itself back into the dead ocean, which it immediately used and plunged downwards followed by both its long tail and the red evangelion.

Interestingly enough, the screams blaring through the intercom were Asuka's, not Shinji's.

The tremors shattered the command bridge's windows, leaving them open for Touji and Kensuke to lean past their frames in worry for their friend (the latter still holding his camera), and stare unbelieving at the sea that had swallowed the two Children and seemed in the process of returning to a calmer state without a care in the world.

"They fell into the ocean!" the admiral curtly summarized the rather unfavorable situation – even Misato lost her cool for a moment, but quickly regained her bearings in a matter of split-seconds and immediately began shouting orders into the microphone: "Asuka, retreat immediately! An underwater battle with B equipment is completely impossible!"

But Asuka saw things differently – Even though the worst case scenario she had been trying to prevent from the very beginning had just come to pass, the Second Child had not lost her resolve, forcing the Evangelion's arms to hold on to the one solid thing there _was_ to hold on to down there: The body of the angel.

How did that old saying go? If you've got a tiger by the tail, never let go – and as a Defender of the Earth, the redhead thought herself a high enough authority to decree that the same was true for fish jaws.

Nothing in this world could make her retreat and let go of her prey – a true elite pilot like herself didn't need no special equipment to beat some overgrown manatee, and she'd make sure that the cheap excuse for an EVA pilot she had sitting behind her knew it, too!

According to her own ideals and standards, she did not permit her answer to betray anything other than a boundless, superior bravado, brazen enough to worry even Misato and making her doubt whether she had sufficiently prepared this young girl for the serious trials awaiting her, or whether she had not cultivated a dangerous hubris in her attempts to motivate her: "We won't know that until we try it!"

The continuous lowering of the cable that served as the only lifeline between the EVA and the surface was certainly not very encouraging, moving sometimes left, sometimes right as the unsuccessful angel-rodeo continued and less and less of it remained, destroying yet more of Kensuke's beloved airplanes as it moved across the flight deck.

Apparently, the angels seemed delight the wanton destruction of buildings even if they showed up on the high seas – the unfortunate structures whose silhouettes were only barely discernible in the turbid red waters had presumably belonged to a city which had been eradicated in Second Impact and subsequently joined the likes of Atlantis and Vineta on the bottom of the sea.

That the Children's desperate attempts to hang onto the angel got them shaken rather badly probably needed no further explanations – and just as Shinji had feared, the battle had revealed Asuka as the inexperienced rookie she truly was the moment it had turned dead serious – She just sat there with her eyes shut tightly in exertion, needing all of her strenght and attention just to keep her hands on her control levers and those of EVA 02 clinging to the angel's hide – Here was a young girl no older than himself, and she appeared to be reaching her limit, and so, it fell to Shinji to think of further plans and actions – only that he was not exactly a great planner. He'd reached forward to grip the controls and support the Second Child at her harrowing task, but beyond that, he couldn't really think of anything to do – He could barely constrain his own panic behind his grit teeth and and stoic, serious facade, so that it was more to himself than Asuka that he mumbled to about the need to absolutely do something.

But this cruel, mean-spirited world did not leave him any real chance to think of such a plan – any half-formulated plans Shinji might have managed to scrape up dissolved back into diffuse mist when Misato's voice interrupted them over the intercom: "The cable is running out! Brace for recoil!"

She had not shut her mouth when said recoil made itself felt, shaking the ship and perpetuating itself through the dephts for miles along the cable, until it ripped EVA 02 off the angel's body despite Asuka's best efforts.

"Damnit!" she cursed.

Back in the command bridge, the large setback was summarized with a curt sentence that barely did all of its implications justice: "The EVA has lost its target!"

Kensuke, as usual, had different worries: "Why does the blasted memory card have to be full _now_ of all times?" But even the camera, whose offending component he was currently holding with the corners of hiw mouth while he went about replacing it, could not hold his attention when he heard the sound of engines. "Holy Canoli! It's a genuine Yak Ninety-Eight!"

Indeed, one of the very same ramps that had become EVA 02's undoing had just propelled a shiny blue plane to its flight deck, and right on cue, one of its occupants announced himself over the intercom: "Hi, Katsuragi!"

Misato herself did not know why she reacted with a bright smile and a matching exclamation of his name that would have rivaled that of Lois Lane in the exact moment tht some supervillain's actions were interrupted by the whole 'Is it a bird, is it a plane-?' shtick, but she was forced back to her senses when he sprouted some nonchalant comment about how he had something left to deliver and a few words of parting and ordered the plane's pilot to take off, the latter crossing the line completely and evaporating any of the questionable joy she might have connected with the sight of him.

By the time Kensuke had suceeded in exchanging the memory disc, there was nothing to film but Touji's and Misato's expressions of flabbergasted indignation and their remarkable similarity to rain-soaked poodles.

The former finally summarized the ludicrous event that had just taken place before his eyes:

"He just... ran away..."

* * *

In the meantime, the angel had not been able to locate its true target – No matter where it swam, it could no longer sense the faintest hint of its presence, even without the Evangelion closeby – which left the aimlessly drifting cyborg as its only remaining target and thus, the aim of its latest charge.

"It's coming back!" Shinji warned, but before he could do or suggest anything, the control levers had been reclaimed by a pissed-off and frustrated Second Child. "This time, I'll finish that thing!" she announced in defiance of her current helpless situation without this ever sounding fully convincing to Shinji after all he had already witnessed.

Asuka pulled on the levers – but nothing happened.

EVA 02 remained a static piece of driftwood that refused to move much – it is said that pride comes before a fall, and Captain Shikinami _did_ fall, into an undignified panic, that is.

"W-WHAT? Why isn't it working?"

"Must be because of the B equipment..." Shinji mused in resignation.

"What are we going to do?!"

Shinji could hardly believe that she would seriously ask him this about all her bragging about how she was supposedly trained and all that, but he was far too bummed out about the imminent prospect of becoming fish fodder to bother with any serious umbrage.

"How would I know?"

"Beats me! You're supposed to be the famous Third Child, aren't you?"

"It's coming!" Shinji remarked, at this point far past caring about her childish provocations.

Asuka barely managed to raise the EVAs head before the angel opened its long, gaping maw to devour them.

"T-Teeth!" Asuka remarked, recoiling from the screen in visible fear, leaving bits of perspiration to dissolve into the plug.

Shinji, by contrast, remained somewhat calm and collected but not exactly hopeful.

"It really _is_ an angel..." he remarked upon spotting the angel's glowing red core somewhere further down its throat.

As the angel pushed its countless, curved teeth past the EVA's armor plates into its tender flesh, a further tremor shook the screaming girl and her silent companion who'd grit his teeth and stoically endured the ordeal.

Shinji could easily imagine that it was not merely fear that was bringing forth her screams – the high synch ratio that allowed for her earlier acrobatics must come at a price – As for himself, the sensation of being pierced by the angel's teeth was more strange than anything else. Sure, the pain was there, except not really – the corresponding parts of his stomach felt more like a limb would after having it 'fall asleep' and then having both circulation and feeling return to it, that precise sensation of discomfort when you tried moving it again – it was very far from the real, stinging pain he would have experienced in EVA 01, which seemed only natural when one considered that this was mostly Asuka's EVA that he'd never sat in before – Even with Unit One, he'd needed some time to properly get the hang of it.

But even EVA 02's designated pilot was not of any use – despite her military rank and braggart attitude, Asuka had evidently never seen real combat, suffered the result of violence on her own body or been forced to power through an injury, leaving Shinji with the obligation to take matters into his own hands.

* * *

In the meantime, the angel had not been able to locate its true target – No matter where it swam, it could no longer sense the faintest hint of its presence, even without the Evangelion closeby – which left the aimlessly drifting cyborg as its only remaining target and thus, the aim of its latest charge.

"It's coming back!" Shinji warned, but before he could do or suggest anything, the control levers had been reclaimed by a pissed-off and frustrated Second Child. "This time, I'll finish that thing!" she announced in defiance of her current helpless situation without this ever sounding fully convincing to Shinji after all he had already witnessed.

Asuka pulled on the levers – but nothing happened.

EVA 02 remained a static piece of driftwood that refused to move much – it is said that pride comes before a fall, and Captain Shikinami _did_ fall, into an undignified panic, that is.

"W-WHAT? Why isn't it working?"

"Must be because of the B equipment..." Shinji mused in resignation.

"What are we going to do?!"

Shinji could hardly believe that she would seriously ask him this about all her bragging about how she was supposedly trained and all that, but he was far too bummed out about the imminent prospect of becoming fish fodder to bother with any serious umbrage.

"How would I know?"

"Beats me! You're supposed to be the famous Third Child, aren't you?"

"It's coming!" Shinji remarked, at this point far past caring about her childish provocations.

Asuka barely managed to raise the EVAs head before the angel opened its long, gaping maw to devour them.

"T-Teeth!" Asuka remarked, recoiling from the screen in visible fear, leaving bits of perspiration to dissolve into the plug.

Shinji, by contrast, remained somewhat calm and collected but not exactly hopeful.

"It really _is_ an angel..." he remarked upon spotting the angel's glowing red core somewhere further down its throat.

As the angel pushed its countless, curved teeth past the EVA's armor plates into its tender flesh, a further tremor shook the screaming girl and her silent companion who'd grit his teeth and stoically endured the ordeal.

Shinji could easily imagine that it was not merely fear that was bringing forth her screams – the high synch ratio that allowed for her earlier acrobatics must come at a price – As for himself, the sensation of being pierced by the angel's teeth was more strange than anything else. Sure, the pain was there, except not really – the corresponding parts of his stomach felt more like a limb would after having it 'fall asleep' and then having both circulation and feeling return to it, that precise sensation of discomfort when you tried moving it again – it was very far from the real, stinging pain he would have experienced in EVA 01, which seemed only natural when one considered that this was mostly Asuka's EVA that he'd never sat in before – Even with Unit One, he'd needed some time to properly get the hang of it.

But even EVA 02's designated pilot was not of any use – despite her military rank and braggart attitude, Asuka had evidently never seen real combat, suffered the result of violence on her own body or been forced to power through an injury, leaving Shinji with the obligation to take matters into his own hands.

* * *

On the bridge of the over the rainbow, a look at the instruments had since allowed its occupants to guess at the Children's predicament: "The EVA has entered the target!"

"Entered?" Touji repeated incredulously. "Does that mean it got _swallowed?_ Like a worm on a fishing line?"

"Like a fishing line?... EXACTLY, like _fishing line!_ Suzuhara-kun, you're a genius!" Misato called out with the same familiar glint in her eyes that tended to accompany the hatching of another of her wacky, reckless plans.

Almost immediately, she seemed to shift back into 'serious mode' and turned toward the officers with a serious, determined expression.

"Admiral?"

"Yes?"

"I am dependent on your cooperation."

* * *

Unaware that a remedy to their unfortunate situation was already in the works several hundred meters above him, Shinji was directing all effort he could muster to stave off their doom.

The entry plug was being jerked around again and again, and each time challenged his endurance anew – Most of the time, he managed to keep himself in a stable position by clinging to the control yokes with all of his strength and leaning against them with his body weight, but still, he could not help the impression that the EVA could break apart all around him at any given moment.

Right now, it was still lodged in the jaws of the angel, its legs hanging out of its jaws like something it forgot to clean away from its teeth, limp save for the occasional weak twitch.

When he wasn't being shaken too badly, his efforts were diverted to the attempt to force the sea monster's enormous jaws apart, but no matter how much Shinji strained his arms at the controls, they did not move as much as a millimeter, like he might as well be pushing against a solid brick wall.

The only consequence his great exertions left behind was the thin layer of sweat that had begun to spring up between his skin and the rubber of his plugsuit.

Shinji knew all too well that this EVA must have been home to an unending wellspring titanic, violent strength, but wherever that power was, he wasn't reaching it. No matter how much wide tried to open himself, it only worked up to a certain limit that even concentration and willpower could only push so far – and the cool, turbid dephts of EVA 02 were not exactly sending anything resembling a directed reply – His synch rate was probably far too low to match the angel's herculean strength, and simply wasn't making any progress.

But Shinji could not afford to stop trying – He wasn't fighting because he thought he could win, but because he _had_ to win.

The EVAs designated pilot might have been capable of getting to to move, but she could not be counted on, and with tons of water above their heads, there was no help coming.

"We're in a big pinch..." he concluded, parting his teeth for a moment – The Second Child, who had been emphatic ignoring him so far seemed to take somethin about that sentence as a personal insult and barked for him to show up – but once she'd acknowledged his existence beyond that of background noise, she could no longer overlook that Shinji had 'dared' to grab her controls, which necessitated that he lean over her thighs and at times even graze her breasts, a factoid that left her rather genuinely bothered, complete with a shimmer of pink showing up on her face – Not that Shinji had been able to concentrate on anything other than saving both their lives, but since when did the 'glorious Captain Shikinami' ever stop to consider such insignificant details?

She made up her mind about the situation right away: "Get off me right now, you pervert!"

Her ensuing attempt to brusquely shove him aside did not make his task any easier. Tightly shutting one eye to avert it's destruction by Asuka's fingers, he protested: "But we have to free ourselves!"

He did not expect that reasoning would have much of an effect on the stubborn braggart, and he might well have been right, but at that exact moment, the wrestling match inside the entry plug was interrupted by something completely different: The sound of Misato's voice which filled the entry plug over the intercom and, to Shinji's ears, sounded like the first sunbeam breaking through a storm: "Asuka, can you hear me? Don't let go of the target at any cost!"

* * *

The plan was to conclude the operation in the following manner: Two evacuated battleships were to be sunk along the umbilical cable, which would be reeled in like a fishing line to keep the angel from evading them. Once sunk, all their remaining munition including the self-destruction charges were to be emptied into the angel's mouth, thus blowing it apart. EVA 02's role in this consisted of ensuring that the ships would reach their destination – In one sense, by neutralizing the angel's AT-field, but in another – and this was the tricky part – by physically forcing its mouth open with its own two hands.

"That's insane!" the Admiral retorted once the plan had been fully explained to him. But Misato had already made her decision: "It might be insane, but it's not impossible."

"I... understand. But what about the Evangelion?"

"Don't you worry, those two will be fine."

* * *

Misato had always been an optimist, though there was a legitimate concern that she might not have taken such a rosy view of the situation if she had been able to monitor the debacle currently unfolding within the entry plug.

Once her pushing strategy had proven ineffective, Asuka had unleashed the time-tested tactics of 'punching' and 'hair-pulling' on the Third Child, both skills she had presumably mastered during her days as a mean kindergarten bully.

"No one operates EVA 02 without my permission!"

Since no one else seemed to remember that they were currently engaged in a battle for the future of mankind, Shinji tried his best to endure the assault and responded with an affirmation and assurance that he'd try his best when Misato inquired whether they'd understood the plan – or, as he privately added, he'd do the best he could manage with Asuka's deducting from his ability to concentrate.

He'd just have to deal with it – after all, Misato was counting on him.

There was, however, not much time for him to pull that off; Right after Misatos warning, a further, much stronger shaking had went through the plug – they'd begun to reel in the cable, from which one could deduce that the two battleships were already speeding toward the angel at this precise moment, when it's jaws were still tightly shut.

Shinji gave it everything he had, but his efforts seemed in vain – With his best efforts, he did manage to somewhat pry apart its jaws so that a section of its long, sharp teeth were clearly exposed instead of being covered beneath the flesh of its mouth, but that could barely be called a success: Though the ships were speedily approaching, the rows of teeth were not even fully separated from each other and the jawbones themselves weren't budging a millimeter, and just to make things worse, Asuka was still vigorously complained, even if she had mostly ceased her physical assaults for lack of effectiveness: "Get off I said! Get away from my thighs immediately!"

"Don't we have other things to worry about?" Shinji retorted, his voice peppered with real, clearly discernable anger "If this thing doesn't open its mouth any time soon, we're done for!"

Bundling all the physical strength he had left and gathering allthe willpower he could muster from every last nook and cranny of his being, Shinji made one last attempt to force the beasts jaws apart, laboring under the bright radiance of the core in its throat, but the muscles that must have been necessary for the task of opening or closing such a titanic maw would have hard to overcome even if he'd had his own EVA at his disposal, not to speak of this foreign one.

The hellish strains he was putting himself under were barely reaching the Evangelion's hands, and what little was getting through was far from enough to elicit a sufficient effect.

At last, the Third Child was forced to admit that he was getting nowhere.

"It's no use!" he called out, turning to Asuka in a bid for help.

But she was even further from having a solution to this problem: "We're out of time!"

Of course, he should have thought better than to expect something other than this; But he was beginning to realize that there was something entirely different he should have thought of: This girl before him was this stubborn Evangelion's designated pilot.

She'd made quite sure that he didn't forget her bragging about how she'd been training with this thing since forever, far longer even than he'd working with Unit One: If anyone could bid this thing to move under these circumstances, it had to be her. As little as he could stand that stuck-up shrew, in order for them both to survive this and save humanity, he _needed_ Asuka – Right now, he had the battle experience and the nerve to pull this off, but she had a higher synch rate with this Evangelion, and of course all that training she'd been speaking off – If there was any chance that the angel's mouth could be forced open in time, it would require them both to fight it _together_ and put aside their mutual antipathy toward each other's opposite personalities for the good of humanity, in order to command the EVA in perfect unison.

In actuality, he had witnessed it many town now, how an unbearable load or insurmountable odds could somehow still be overcome if people came together to unify their strength.

It wasn't that Shinji thought of himself as that great an additional asset, but if that Captain Shikinami was even occasionally half as awesome as she claimed to be, they should be able to pull it off between the two of them. Sure, she was liable to let that supposed skill get to her head, but that's what the 'legendary Third Child' would be here for.

If even people as different as them could balance and complement each other to make the impossible happen... yes, then, there might actually be some genuine hope for this world.

For once, Shinji did not hesitate any longer.

Determined, he swiftly turned to the control and tried to remember one particular functionality that he'd heard of sometime during his many training sessions – Meek and fearful as he'd been, he'd tried his best to obediently memorize everything that had been asked of him, even though he had not thought that he'd ever truly need it, but it was still incredible luck that he manged to retrieve a seemingly insignificant detail that he'd attempted to squeeze into his head in a very stressful and turbulent time – but how had Kaji put it?

Luck was part of his destiny.

Another yet more fortunate fact was that the mechanism was exactly the same in EVA 02, even though the design of the control yokes had been fitted with several additional buttons – He pulled the complete device out of its usual place and folded its upper portion apart, so that the rail now offered enough space for two pairs of hands – and against his expectations, he directly felt another set of warm hands on his own, without having to apply any further persuasion first.

Her hands rested on his as indiscriminately as on the metal below, and since their plugsuits both had the same, bright red color, the contours of their fingers seemed to blur, almost as if the two children had indeed joined as one, interwoven in their forms and unified by their joint will to part the angel's jaws.

"Alright, but don't think anything weird!" she still warned once more.

"Like what for example?" he retorted, not breaking his serious look ahead.

"Just concentrate!"

"Like you need to tell me!"

Hand in hand, they both pulled on the levers, which still offered them a lot of resistance, but finally showed signs of actually budging.

Not just Shinji, but Asuka as well showed her exertion plain on their faces, but nonetheless, at very least Shinji felt much lighter than before, like he had been crawling and had only just started to walk.

It was still very far from what he could have archived with Unit One, but at long last, he finally got the feeling that there was a continuous flow of information between himself and the Evangelion... and not just his own.

He guessed that the stream of his thoughts was now wide enough to become aware of Asuka's, a wide, boundless torrent that seemed to fill the expanse, much stronger and regular than anything he'd ever managed – not even with Unit 01.

He could only surmise that her claims about all of her training hadn't been just for show – he could not even get a feel on the magnitude by which her synch rate must have outclassed his own.

If the frenzied torrent of her thoughts and feelings had a color, even it would have been that same, saturated rose-red, but at the same time, her essence was nothing like he imagined it – Rather like EVA 02 itself, it did not really have any sort of pleasant warmth to it, but it wasn't repulsive, either; There was mostly a sweet, fruity and vital quality to it, like fresh strawberries, mixed with tiny, minuscule sparks of something that wasn't all that different from his own being...

Both streams seemed to come together in a double helix, as the contents of their minds came closer and closer to each other, their unified will kept pushing into the same direction and even their hearts seemed to beat in unison with both each other, and the thoughts that filled the Evangelion's inner mental expanse as a chorus:

"OPEN, OPEN, OPEN, OPEN!"

What happened next could have been described in a multitude of ways. One could have said that the streams of thoughts merged as one, technically speaking, a resonance of their ego boundaries had taken place, with the effect, that instead of forming an interference pattern, their synch ratios had been added onto each other, like they had come from a single person if you were feeling poetical, you could even have said that their souls had touched.

One way or another, the event had one unambigous consequence: The angel's fate had been sealed.

Godlike and effortlessly, the Evangelion raised its head like an executioner's scythe, and its head plating folded open to reveal the eyes beneath, shining brightly like the stars of the southern cross, while the red titan's arms parted the angel's jaws with ease, just seconds, before the warships sped past the evangelion to its light and its left, shattering the angel's once awe-inspiring teeth like cheap little toothpicks.

What followed, was Misato's order to fire, followed by a flood of rockets and explosions, which distended the angel's body to a multiple of its size, until it could hold no more and burst like an air balloon, followed by a tremendous explosion that erased every last trace of the angel.

One the surface, the spectacle manifested as a column of water that explosively blew into dizzying heights, but was by far dwarfed by the cross-shaped light beam emerging from its middle, which penetrated far into the atmosphere and made it look tiny, no matter how insignificant and insect-line it made the humans and their ships look.

The water eventually came crashing back down and whipped the human creations with waves, while parts of it rained down on them as red rain, the sea water indistinguishable from the remains of the angel.

The falling drops refracted the midday sun, causing it to crown the victory with the usual double rainbow.

And somewhere in this entanglement of light and water, EVA 02 had been shot from the dephts, which actually managed to pull off an elegant landing onto a flight deck – only to slump down seconds later because the explosion had torn up the power cable in its entirety.

* * *

The next thing Shinji recalled was an unpleasant feeling pulling at his body, not quite pain, but more like its afterimage, like the sickness left behind by a burn or even an irradiation, a sort of damage that could still have a disintegrating effect long after you were separated from its source. Those were an uncomfortable couple of seconds, but soon, the feeling dissipated without a trace by the time he'd managed to lift his head and open his eyes – what had happened?

Oh right. He'd defeated the angel... and had come into contact with the contents of Asuka's head. No wonder he'd been feeling a bit queasy.

But the worst might well be yet to come, as Asuka herself was still lying in the plug, every bit as unconscious as he'd been moments ago, but in a precarious position that was bound to earn him another Shikinami-brand roundhouse kick the moment she woke up – After his own first battle, he'd been out for a day, but he had been unaccustumed to linking with Evangelions and what had just transpired did not compare to a full-blown Berserk incident in terms of intensity. A day? No, she'd probably wake in a minute, at most.

And then, things might get painful for him – Because they had ended up on what used to be 'roof' of the plug when the EVA was still in an upright position, and she was lying on top on him, uncomfortably pressing the plastic of the 'boob protectors' he wasn't exactly filling out onto his chest – Not that she was particularly heavy, she really _did_ have the measurements of a model, and even if he'd probably never get used to her abrasive personality, as long as she was asleep, she simply looked like a regular, cute girl that almost had something dainty and endearing about her, with that very light European skin tone of hers – though she wasn't exactly pale or waxy, either; Her skin was rosy, well-cared for and brimming with vitality, and even her hair still bore the faint scent of strawberries after being submerged in the LCL and its bloody stench, doubtlessly the result of whatever expensive shampoo she used and and all the business secrets of the German chemistry industry.

(Shinji had to admit that there was something pleasing about the way her long hair whirled around her, and it's bright, eye-catching color he could hardly believe was real. )

Actually, this situation didn't seem that bad... an opinion which he immediately cancelled once Captain Shikinami began to stir and look at him with her demanding, ice-blue eyes, reminding him again of the entire 'terrible personality' part.

"Uh... is... is everything alright, Shikinami-san?" he asked nervously.

Of course, he got slapped, onto that same cheek that had barely recovered from the last assault.

The Second Child immediately began calling him an idiot and a pervert, to ask him just how stupid he was and if he could possibly have been less useful during the battle.

Then, she got off him, located the entry plug's escape hatch and climbed outside, where Shinji already heard what he believed to be Misato's voice.

Yeah.

Miss Shikinami was _definitely_ alright.

Shinji exhaled a sigh of relief before he got up to leave, in part because Misato was calling for him outside.

"Hey, Shinji-kun! Come out already! You can get all the rest you want once you're outside!"

"I'm not surprised that that Daddy's boy is such a slowpoke. The real question should be how someone like him ever got to be EVA pilot! I know that he's only assigned to the test model, but still! This 'Legendary Third Child' has been **such** a disappointment!"

"I think you're putting him in a box a bit too quick there. Just wait until you properly get to know him, you might change your mind!"

"Are you joking?"

* * *

A brief while later, our protagonists had reached the port of Neo Yokosuka, where they were received by Ritsuko and a security detachment, among others – at the first opportunity, Misato had sunk down on the seat of a vehicle intended to bring her straight to headquarters, incidentally right next to her friend and co-worker.

Though no one could have blamed her for the exhaustion brought on by the more than eventful voyage, especially when one looked at the few remaining but still rather demolished ships that bore witness to its trials.

"You've really done it again..." the Leader of Project E commented in her usual cynical manner.

But Misato was far too exhausted to come up with a snappy comeback.

"It was my fault, I should have prepared for an underwater battle..."

"That's rare! You're admitting a mistake?" Ritsuko questioned teasingly.

"Not necessarily. After all, the situation allowed us to connect much precious research data, for example, about what happens if you put two pilots into the same Evangelion..."

"Perhaps..." the blonde confirmed as the thumbed through the stack of papers given to her by her co-worker, until something inside them suddenly made her stop in her tracks. "Misato?"

"Yeah...?"

"This data really _IS_ precious. Those two reached the highest synch rate ever recorded!"

"But only for seven Seconds. Must've been the adrenaline."

* * *

While the two women proceeded to discuss the recorded measurements, the routine examination of the pilots had been concluded elsewhere – Shinji didn't have a scratch apart from the temporary soreness in his arms, though Asuka had incurred mild skin irritation in the places corresponding to where the Angel had bitten into EVA 02's body, though she was given a supposedly modern salve that was supposed to cure it by tomorrow or at most the day after, in short, they were let go without much ado, after which they were made to exit the makeshift sickbay tent through a small escalator, at whose lower end they were already being awaited by Touji and Kensuke, whereby the later was using the opportunity to film EVA 02 being transported – it seemed that he, too, would conclude the day with a lot of 'precious research data'.

The first to descend was Asuka, who looked around her as if she were searching for something and was wholly ignored by Kensuke, who was otherwise busy and not really the belligerent type anyways, whereas Touji merely graced her with a disdainful glare.

Their reaction to Shinji, however, could not have been more different, as Touji pointed at him with wide eyes and exclaimed, 'P-PAIR LOOK!', causing Kensuke to turn around and capture the moment for eternity with his omnipresent electronic companion.

By the time the Third Child had reached the bottom of the escalator, his complexion had come to rival the color of the offending article of clothing.

He began seriously pondering, if it wouldn't have been preferable to get rid of it at the first opportunity and suffer the humiliation of showing up in his birthday suit instead.

In the end, he ended up choosing the path of least resistance and the fewest required answers, until a lady from the security department showed up and instructed them all to get into a nearby car. It was only at the second glance that Shinji recognize the woman who was now set to drive them all back to Neo Tokyo 3 as someone he'd met once before.

She had been the one who had saved his life back when he'd... ran away.

He tried his hardest not to think of that.

He realized that she probably had work to do and might want to get over with it without further delay, but he'd be damned if he saw her again and didn't seize the chance to thank her for what she'd done.

Because he was embarrassed to bring up the subject in front of his friends, (He was worried about what they might think of him if they heard that), he waited until they had gone ahead and boarded the vehicle, and only turned in her direction when she was about to leave herself, but did not manage to speak to her until he'd spent long enough awkwardly standing there and staring at her for her to ask him what the matter was.

"Uh... Well Miss..." He spent quite a while uncertainly twiddling his own fingers while hardly looking at her, but then, he rose up his eyes to meet hers and spoke swiftly:

"Thank you!"

"...what for?" the Woman in black asked curtly.

The clothes and her dark sunglasses gave her an unfathomable, intimidating aura, which was probably their explicit purpose.

"For what you did... earlier... by that river..."

"There is nothing to thank me for." she replied in a businesslike fashion. "I was merely doing my duty."

Shinji thought that this sounded rather similar to what Ayanami had told him not too long ago. "But I still... wanted to thank you, anyways. U, I- I'm Ikari Shinji."

"I am quite aware of that."

"And you? Y-You don't have to tell me if, if you're not allowed to, but I thought I s-should know after-... afer you..." Since he could not produce any more words, he endeavored to muster a timid smile.

"Asahina Najiko."

"Uh...?"

"That is my name. You did ask for it, did you not?"

"Y-Yes I did. So, uh, thanks again, A-Asahina-san."

And then he turned around, following his friends to the car.

Asahina's gaze followed the boy. For a moment, her otherwise cool and professional expression was tinged with a bitter, sadonic note that extended to the thin, warped smile blossoming on her lips.

"Ikari Shinji..." she repeated, as if she couldn't decided if she found the name ridiculous, unspeakably sad, or to be something that made anger rise up through her being.

But it was only a brief moment, before the tides of her face ebbed away and left her to follow the boy in order to do her job.

* * *

Asuka, meanwhile, had reached the cordoned-off portion of the harbor's parking lot before the boys and rather than to wait for an escort, looked around briskly until she spotted Ritsuko and Misato, and immediately ran off to towards them to further her own ambitions.

"Hey!" she spoke excitedly as soon as she caught up to the two women. "Have you seen Kaji-san anywhere?"

Misato, in whose vicinity that name should probably not have been mentioned, immediately seemed like her mood had dropped by an octave. "You're not gonna find him anywhere around here; He made off long ago! Actually, I'd bet you anything that he's already returned to headquarters, that _bastard_!"

* * *

Though one might have disagreed about Misato's colorful assessments of her ex-boyfriend's personality, at very least her guess regarding his current location turned out to be dead-on target:

The long-haired NERV employee had indeed arrived at headquarters, to be exact, he was currently in the commander's office.

The room was composed of a single, spacious expanse that did not provide the eye much to hang onto apart from the three men situated within (its owner, his second-in-command, and Kaji himself), the desk situated in its center and the horizon lines formed by the intersection of its floor and ceiling with the featureless panorama window. Both below and about three meters above them was what appeared like a single, shiny plate much unlike the usual materials that ceilings and floors tended to be composed of – you could have turned the whole room on its head and not expected anyone to notice, the only distinction between floor and ceiling being the distinct symbols covering the width of both surfaces.

The windows, which substituted for three out of the rooms four walls, let in plenty of the bright but diffuse light from the geofront's many lighting devices.

Despite the light's intensity, its cold coloration kept it from eliciting the same positive associations as proper daylight.

Lamps that produced this intense, pure white light might have been more efficient and power-saving, but did not succeed in removing the cave-like character from the geofront or the buildings it contained.

Three men of different age groups cast long shadows in that fallow glow, Fuyutsuki from right by the window, and Kaji and Ikari from the latter's desk, at whose sides they were standing across from each other, whereby the younger man was carrying two solid plastic cases one of which was slightly larger than the other.

"That was no easy task!" he narrated in an easygoing manner, to which the commander listened with a serious, unfathomable expression, for once standing in front of his chair rather than sitting in it.

"Well, concerning the Third Angel and Unit Five, that's probably it. The incident has been classified as an accident and it spelled the end for Bethania Base's Marduk project. Everything went according to your scenario. In my most recent dossier about SEELE, you'll find-"

"We've already read it. The data on the construction of Mark Six has proven very useful." Fuyutsuki confirmed without turning around to face the younger man.

"I'm glad to hear that. Oh, and here are the 'presents' I've promised you. This one is from Bethany."

After placing the smaller one at his feet, Kaji heaved the slightly larger suitcase onto the desk and released its locks, after which it opened automatically, tinging the men's faces with a cool, blue clue uncomfortably reminiscent of the Cerenkov- radiation, which could occasionally be observed in nuclear reactors, bathing their faces in contrasts of light and shadow that gave them an almost demonic tinge.

"This is it. The lost number that should have served as a replacement. The key to the unification of the human spirit with the divine."

"Yes." Ikari confirmed, looking into his subordinate's eyes with a thin, willful grin. "If everything else fails, this will open the doors to the instrumentality of mankind... the Key of Nebukadnezzar."

The case's lid had revealed an oblong, rectangular block of a transparent, orange material which was much smaller than the case itself and had been fixed in its relative center. What resided inside it bore only a very distant resemblance to an actual key.

There was actually a sort of 'base' for it to be gripped by, with a 'hilt' parts of which flared out like an infinity symbol, but where a key's 'teeth' should have been, there was something that rather resembled a human nervous system with all of its twists and branches, the small tiny area that a human could influence through their will alone.

Gently, almost lovingly, Ikari moved his large, glowing hand to the case's lid and carefully pressed it down until the components of its locks connected with a click.

His hand still rested possesively upon the box.

"And what about the one you were supposed to pick up in Germany?" the commander asked, his expectant smile not leaving his face.

Kaji placed the second, slightly smaller but just as black box upon the first one, where Ikari immediately accepted it and even opened it personally this time.

This lid revealed another labeled block, its contents no less bizarre but rather different: Inside the amber preservative was a disgusting, mishappen being that bore a distant resemblance to a human embryo in a late stage of development, only that it was several orders of magnitude too large for one of those despite its insect-like size.

One did not even want to ponder what this creature's adult form might look like, considering that unlike an unborn human, it already possessed a single red eye the size of a grape, that made you wonder how it didn't fall out of its skull, or if it was pure coincidence that it appeared to be pointing in the direction from which the two men gazed at it, or if it was somehow following them – and Ikari in particular.

"It had regenerated itself op to this point until it was frozen Bakelite, " Kaji explained "...but it is without any doubt, alive. This is another of the puzzle pieces that you need for your project, isn't it?"

"Yes." Ikari confirmed, about as delighted as his personality seemed to allow. "This is ADAM. The first human."

"Alright, that would be it!" Kaji concluded. "If you don't mind, I'd like to take a while off to take care of some personal business. If you need me to make any more deliveries, just let me know.

With an informal wave, to which he did not really expect an answer from any of the stiff older men, Kaji departed the room without another look behind him.

"Kaji Ryoji, Leader of the Investigations Department..." Fuyutsuki summarized, finally turning to let his gaze trail after the younger man with a hint of worry. "Can we really trust him?"

Ikari did not supply his subordinate with the answer he deserved.

* * *

The orange liquid sprayed into the air and twisted into a spiral-like tower, floating in the air like the inverted form of a maelstrom detached from the ocean, its neck twisting and narrowing further until its point began to solidify. A thin liquid turned into a viscous one, then into a gel, which then further hardened into a kind of crystalline structure, which, even further upward, began to lose its shine and resemble living, pulsating human flesh, first vaguely, and then increasingly turning from a conical spiral into a cylinder of a limb, on whose very top the likeness of finger buds could be seen... only for the whole flesh-tower to burst apart from the very inside, before these had reached a significant length, splattering the walls of a warehouse, with the orange liquid it had been composed of.

Splattered from head to toe along its nude form, just like the stage of its unholy ceremony, and still standing there with its hand outstretched like it had been all along, the escaped experiment that had been recently classified as 'Leatha' dully stared ahead with wide, ostensibly shocked eyes.

{{He is here.}}

* * *

Excerpts from SEELEs Seventh Battle Report and the ensuing comitee meeting from the inner circle:

_The Seventh Angel, Gaghiel, has been encountered._

_The Second Child, Asuka Langley-Shikinami, the exclusive Pilot of Eva 02, deployed EVA 02 for the first time._

_A close range battle at Sea ensued, and the first underwater battle occurred._

_The confrontation took place around the former Ito area._

"This incident was a deviation from our scenario!"

"But the result was within the expected parameters. The divergences should be easy to correct."

"I beg to differ. The UN forces lost a their of their fleet!"

"You're saying this because they were ships of your nation; The losses were negligible."

"Indeed. It was fortunate that the damage was so light."

* * *

'Thanks' to his unexpected encounter with a ghastly aquatic angel and a land-dwelling, but no less ghastly EVA pilot, that turbulent Sunday ended as fast as it had arrived, and before he knew it, Shinji found himself on monday morning, walking to school in the red of dusk.

So much for his plans of recovering from the recent strains on a nice relaxing weekend.

This morning, he'd once again had one of those dreams, again the version where everyone who knew him stood around him congratulating him for something diffuse and abstract that he'd always have forgotten by the time he woke up. But the strangest thing was, last time he'd had the dream, he'd distinctly remembered seeing a few people that he hadn't seen before, and this time had been no different, except... the red-haired girl in the yellow dress and the man with stubble and ponytail... those had been Kaji and Asuka, hadn't they?

If it was just last day's events mixing themselves into his dreams, that would not have been that extraordinary, but... he could not shake the impression that they had been part of the dream _last time_ , too, that he's seen their faces there before he could attribute names to them in his waking days. Asuka had been wearing the exact same yellow sundress as yesterday, when he'd first met her; How could he possibly recognize her likeness in memories that could not have contained her?

He had heard the usual tales of dreams foretelling the future, but... this was far too crazy. Even the missing voice from the deja vus in the morning appeared to have been Asuka's... Perhaps his mind was playing a trick on him, and retroactively plastering her face into those vague, senseless visions.

But even without those dreams, Shikinami suceeded in occupying his attention. Sure, she'd driven him up the wall yesterday, and he'd never met a person with a higher ratio of ego to body weight, but even though he could not describe her personality with a word other than despicable, he could not help but admire her a little. If she wanted to say something, then the greatest effort involved in it seemed to be the opening of her big mouth; There was never the slightest delay. If she wanted something, she'd assert herself without regards for mercy... both things Shinji knew he would _never_ be capable of. Not to mention that yesterday had been her first battle.

Her very first – Shinji still found himself shuddering at the thought of his _own_ first battle.

Even if she had not lived up to the heights of her own bragging and displayed the occasional moment of brief panic, the difference between the two of them could not have been more apparent.

She was a go-getter, a fighter, an image of ambition... and even so, he found it hard to believe that she'd shrugged off an experience in actual armed combat just like that.

"Shikinami... Asuka..." he mumbled to himself, pensively. "Having to be an EVA-pilot doesn't seem to bother her at all... she even seemed happy to be a pilot..."

He could not even begin to understand her.

Shinji's broodings were briefly interrupted, when be believed, for a moment, to have seen a flickering of light in an alleyway he'd just passed, one that he used to pass almost every day on the way to school without ever noticing anything out of the ordinary.

Shinji stood still and uncertainly peered into the narrow alley's shadows.

He couldn't really make out much but the usual trashcans; Must've been a mistake. Normally he'd just continue walking, but... between this, the dreams and the deja vus and everything else, he was honestly beginning to doubt his sanity. He should probably hurry up and get to school, where there were people and sounds, back into full rooms, where everything he saw or heard would be seen by at least 20 other people.

He was about to turn away and leave at a brisk pace without risking another glance backward, when he found his wrist seized by a slender feminine hand that seeed to be wrapped in a cool, rubber-like material.

"Wait!" he heard from a voice that somehow seemed familiar – he turned around to find someone before him, a girl slightly younger than himself.

He did not know have the slightest clue what to make of her.

Her appearance seemed vaguely familiar as well, but he could not have said why.

The girl was a bit shorter than him and had thick dark hair the exact length of her chin, which framed her round, soft-seeming face including her deep blue eyes.

Her strange clothing resembled a plugsuit, but the material seemed much thicker and the gadgets integrated onto it less technically advanced.

The suit was mostly white, but showed the occasional blue or yellow plastic elements, including two yellow, button-like structures at the base of her ribs, or a triangular yellow plaque right above her right breast with the Name 'I. Yui' engraved onto it.

Shinji couldn't help but stare at it, and not just because the strange girl wearing it had shown up out of thin air – but because she happened to have the exact same name as his mother.

But he wasn't given much time to gape, for the girl wasted no time in adressing him – He only saw the moving of her lips and the stirring of her hairtips as she moved, because he did not dare to take his eyes from that plaque, as if he feared that the name on it would dissapear if he looked away.

He expected everything to disintegrate at any moment, only for Misato to wake him from a dream, but the truth remained that the girl was truly and corporeally standing before him, and that the hand holding his wrist never lost its undoubtedly real, physical firmness.

"Ikari Shinji?!" she asked, as if she'd spent days wandering the desert on death's door, and were requesting the permission to begin to hope that the oasis she'd spotted wasn't just a fata morgana. "Is this really you?"

Far too confused to do anything else, Shinji answered the question with a hesitant nod.

The girl smiled.

Since he had spent so long staring at her plaque, he only noticed that she had her eyes lowered when she raised him again – She seemed to have been exhausted and out of breath, but had since caught it again and finally looked up into his face.

"Yes... yes... I can tell it's you..."

Her smile widened and shone with an unwarranted sincerity;

Shinji even thought he saw her eyes water – and could not explain her reaction or its intensity by any means.

He had never seen her before in his life.

Ignorant of what was happening before him, he watched as the girl stood up to her full height and regained her bearings, gathering her lapsed features into a stony, stoic expression.

Her demeanor now resembled a soldier's in a way that reminded him of Rei and brought to his attention that the girls bore more than a passing resemblance to each other.

The color of her eyes, however, bizarrely resembled his own.

"Please listen to me, I don't have a lot of time." she requested. "Please excuse my reaction just now, it was probably uneccesary to ask your name... it's just that the Ikari Shinji I'm most familiar with has, for example, slightly longer hair..."

"The one... you know?"

"I'm sorry. Explaining everything to you would take too long, and besides... my experience has shown that the wrong word in the wrong place can have serious consequences. Let's make it short. I'm Yui. For now, that is all you need to know.

She pulled at the plaque on her suit to present it to him.

"You must be wondering... why I have the same name as your mother, right?"

Shinji froze where he stood.

"Yes, that's right... how can I know your mother's name, or even yours, if you've never met me? Not at all. We _have_ met before. Though one might argue how far that's the same as having met you as you're standing before me now... this is just one of many endless possibilities. But let me explain. My name is 'Yui' because I was named after your mother, though it's not exactly the same... my name is _Ichijou_ Yui. Of course, I cannot prove this to you, but I can surely convince you that you and I are not strangers. How else could I know all this: Your name is Ikari Shinji, and you were born on the sixth of June in 2001. You like to play the Cello but also spend much of your time listening to music. The reason that you use an outdated device is that it used to be your father's – where I came from, it was a gift, but that's not the version I found in most other variants... Your best friend is Nagisa K- no. He should not be here yet. Suzuhara Touji. Your best friend is Suzuhara Touji, but it was not a friendship at first sight. He punched you in the face when you first met. I suppose you could ask me for your mother's maiden name, except there _is_ no maiden name. Your father took your mother's name, not the other way around."

She'd just cited a torrent of personal data about him without even taking a breath, but there was one thing in that list he could not confirm or deny.

"He... did?"

"Shoot!"

The girl covered her mouth with both hands.

The calm attitude of her previous speech appeared to have evaporated. "Forget it. Just forget it. It could be, or it could not be... as I already said, the wrong word at the wrong moment could be disastrous. The point is that we know each other, and that you can trust me. Tell me... where are you right now? What's the last thing that happened? The last angel you defeated... what was it like?"

"It looked... like a fish of sorts. We defeated it in Unit Two... me and Shikinami-san that is. She's-"

"I know who Asuka is. So this time, it's Shikinami again?" the strange girl scratched her chin, as if she were thinking. "I wish I'd landed somewhere, where my advice could be more useful. I considered many situations and what to say in them, but I don't have anything for this one... You usually handle this one just fine on your own...

But listen to me."

Her earlier bashfulness vanished from her voice, and she sounded dead-serious again.

"For the next few months... there is one thing above all others that you should keep in mind... no, you surely must already have thought of it yourself: In order to defeat the enemy, you must become _one,_ unified in heart and soul."

"W-What? Me and... Shikinami-san?"

"You, Asuka, Major Katsuragi, your father, whoever else there is. All of you. And Shinji... even if there are some very, very happy days waiting ahead of you, I lament to tell you, but... it will not last. The home you built for yourself, your friends, the people you love... none of it will last. Indeed... there might come a day on which you feel like your world is coming apart all around you, without you being able to do anything about it. I know this must sound very harsh to you, but for me... it has already happened."

"Already... happened? Do you mean to tell me that you're from the future, or something like that?"

After everything else that had happened to him since his arrival in this town, he could easily believe her.

But Yui did not confirm his suspicion – instead of an answer, she gave him a loud, bitter laugh that seemed out of place on her.

"From the future? There IS no future anymore. And by that, I do not mean that I no longer have hope, else I would not be here... I mean to tell you that every single moment after that fateful day has physically disappeared from this world."

"What day would that be?"

"The day of Third Impact."

"Does this mean... we fail?"

"That depends on how one defines failure... but I don't have the time to explain to you. So I want to focus on the one thing you will need to know in order to take back the future that you worked for so hard... even harder and much longer, than you even know. .."

Yui grabbed him by both shoulders and stared straight into his eyes.

"The world is wrong."

"...wrong? What... what is that supposed to mean?"

"Wrong means wrong. Not right. Not as it should be. You must have noticed by now, haven't you? You must have had those dreams... or at least, an inexplicable sense of deja vu, right?"

She was truly frightening him out of his mind now. The information about his person, she could have come by somehow, but he had not told a single person about his dreams, so how could she know?

He felt like he was seeing the pieces of a puzzle coming together, not sure if the whole they were forming was something he ever wanted to know.

He did not understand anything about this anymore.

"You _did_ have them, did you? It is practically written on your face. And Asuka! Remember Asuka. You just told me, that you just met her for the very first time, right? That is not true, and I'm certain that you must feel that. Asuka is surely no stranger to you. You lived through more hardship together than most people do in their entire lives. You've known each other for a very long time. You must know that. Yu must feel that she is, among other things, one of your very closest friends!"

He wanted to retort, that he would not think of befriending that madwomen in a hundred years, but that would have contradicted the presence of her image in his dreams, and that sense that the sound of her voice was missing in the mornings.

"You know, don't you?" Yui insisted.

For the love of god, he did not know what to answer.

"...why? Why are you telling something like this to me of all people?"

"Isn't that obvious? You are perhaps the most significant individual in all of human history."

Shinji stood frozen as the chills raced through his spine.

That was exactly what that... mass murderer had said.

"What makes you think that I-"

She was gone. Disappeared. As if she'd never been there... and maybe she hadn't been. Perhaps he was indeed beginning to lose it.

The Third Child glanced around at the buildings surrounding him... Tokyo-3, a place he had since come to think of as his home.

Touji, Kensuke, Misato, _everyone_.

None of this... none of it would last?

No future? Third Impact?

The world is wrong?

That was all far too much.

He plain and simply could not take it anymore – he was nothing but a boringly normal boy with no extraordinary features about him, a mere bystander who had been pulled into all of this madness.

Slinging his arms around his upper body, he ran off without ever looking back, away from this place, away from this silence and this twilight.

With every step, he tried to convince himself that none of this ever happened. Exactly! All of this was completely impossible, and even if it were true, what could he possibly do about it? Who could he talk to about it? What could he do?

How was he to react to such nonsense as 'The world is wrong'?

All of it was nonsense! How could something like that possibly have happened? _Of course_ it couldn't have happened. No, no, no, no, just no!

Forced to stop to catch his breath, Shinji forced himself to focus on the pattern of bricks on the sidewalk instead of his nonsensical dreams. That's all they were, right? Just dreams. And there was no way anyone could know of dreams he'd never spoken of, right? Except _in_ a dream.

Anything else was impossible, and surely, anyone he could have asked about this would have told him the same – or think him mad.

A thing like that could not possibly happen...

Shinji was immensely grateful, when the sound of a starting car engine distracted him from his thoughts – There, a little further along the street that led him to school every day, a man had fired up his car and left the boy standing next to it on the sidewalk with a few casual parting words before driving away – Shinji soon recognized the pair as Mitsurugi and his father.

His new classmate, whose cast did not seem to have gotten any thinner over the weekend, remained there for a few moments, lost in though as his glance followed after his father's vehicle.

Then, however, he pulled his school bag, which he'd been gripping with his hand so far (likely because he'd just removed it from the trunk of his father's car.), onto his back and journeyed on towards the school.

Shinji had only spoken to him a few times before, but at this moment, his fear of being alone with his own thoughts was stronger than the one associated with initiating contact.

He just needed some sort of... input to wash what had just happened out of his consciousness and conveniently squeeze it into some dark corner in the back of his head.

The Third Child considered to break into a brisk pace to chase after him, but could not quite find the necessary confidence and ultimately stopped himself after the second step.

The other boy did not seem to have noticed yet, which was to be expected; The distance between spanned about six meters, with a tendency toward increasing.

He had no choice but to do something that he'd done so rarely in his life so far that he could count the occasions with his fingers: Call out loudly to draw someone's attention on a public street. Strangely, he found this little easier than yesterday's fight against a surreal giant monster.

Though he expected that his words must have gotten stuck somewhere inside his throat, he could not find them there, and his lips seemed about as hard to part as the angel's jaws – but he had managed to overcome them, after all, even if it required a little help from a crazy European.

"M-Mitsurugi-kun...!"

Shinji did actually seem to have managed to shout loud enough for his classmate to hear.

Slightly surprised, the slightly older boy turned his head, around which he still wore that same heavy cast.

"...Ikari-san? ...Good morning."

"S-Same to you." Shinji answered quickly. He still wasn't very good at suck situations, so that he had a hard time thinking of something to say, and the usual easy road of waiting for his conversation partner to come up with something seemed unavailable, as Mitsurugi was himself on the reserved side. By the looks of it, he was waiting for _Shinji_ to say something, which he could not be faulted for if one considered who had begun the conversation in the first place.

Nonetheless, Mitsurugi junior did easily find his voice once he'd stepped a little closer to the other boy and got around to getting a good look at him.

"...is everything alright? You seem somewhat... upset."

"Oh..."

That must be because of... earlier.

Shinji began to doubt if getting himself near other people at this moment had truly been the wisest choice.

But he couldn't just turn around and run away, either? What would Mitsurugi think?

So, there was no way out but through.

"It's nothing, I just... didn't sleep very well, because f yesterday's battle."

Shinji hoped that he could be forgiven this one little lie.

"What? Another battle? But they did not issue a state of emergency..."

"That's because it didn't take place here, but on the high seas. Misato-san – that's my superior at NERV – She brought me to... pick up ...a new EVA that was being ….transported here from Germany..."

"And you were attacked on the way back?"

"Yes, exactly." Shinji attempted a smile. "But I, I can cope with that, I think..." He failed to stifle a half-suppressed, nervous laugh. "I should probably have gotten used to it by now, but..."

Surprisingly, Mitsurugi contradicted him: "No you shouldn't." He spoke in the same formal, sober and substantially reserved manner as usual, but with an audible, deliberate firmness to it. "If you ever got used to this, it would be a terrible thing. It would mean that this world had finally gone mad for good. Don't get me wrong, but sometimes when I see our classmates talking about your task, I wonder how they can be so excited about it. I think those battles are terrifying, and I can't even imagine what it must be like to fight them yourself... That we as a people are forced to resort to using child soldiers is an extraordinary sad thing. It should not e _ver_ be considered okay, or be something we can get used to. I must admit, I felt rather awed myself when I saw your robots last week, but the more I think about it, the more and more I realize how mad this world and especially this city has become...and I wonder why it is that this doesn't seem to bother anyone... Or I don't know, it may be that no one wants to show it, so that everything can keep functioning...

I... I don't want to sound spiteful, and I admit that I should probably be ashamed of myself for this, but, somehow, I find comfort in knowing that even you still feel fear..."

Shinji was a bit overwhelmed – This was his first time meeting someone who had such a view of the events. "It's alright. I... To be honest, I'd rather know you thought this way than be confused with some sort of hero... It's not like I wouldn't like to be... popular, or something like this, but, I don't think I could live up to the expectations that people would have of a 'defender of earth'... believe me, I'm anything but hero, and I know that very well..."

He had to think of Asuka, and the way she'd teased him about being the 'Legendary Third Child'. Though it was still preferable to 'Daddy's boy'. Of course, the Second Child could not have known his circumstances, but... it just hurt too much.

"I see that a little differently."

"Heh?" surprised, Shinji turned to Mitsurugi, who actually wore a thin smile on his pale face.

"It's true that I am averse to all these mad things, and I'm glad that you're... not mad, but I also understand that these battles are necessary for us to defend ourselves. Even before Second Impact, this country has often been hit by catastrophe, and always, this meant that we had to find people who were ready to give up themselves, their own hapiness and their own dreams in order for everyone else to go on living as normally as possible...

That you've lost a lot, and might well go on to lose a lot more, perhaps even your or life... cannot be changed. It needs to be done, and the rest of us can't do it, nor can we ever give you back what has been taken from you. But the least we can do, is to keep the noble deeds of you and others like you in our memories. Yes, I'm aware that you work is not anything like an exciting action movie, if you pardon that comparison, but in my eyes, that's exactly what makes you a hero."

"I... I'm afraid you're thinking too highly of me there... I'm not even sure if I'm... really doing it because it's a noble thing, or-..."

"Does that in any way lessen the price that you've had to pay? Excuse me, but I think you're the one who is thinking too lowly of yourself."

"No, no, that's... different..."

"Well, I'm not privy to your innermost thoughts, but-"

Whatever Mitsurugi was going to say next remained unsaid, as his thoughts were then occupied by something else entirely: "Oh...we... we really ought to get going. I can't possibly be late to class after my father went through the trouble of driving me all the way here..."

Shinji believed to have spotted a hint of urgent embarrassment in his new classmate's face.

"M-Mitsurugi-kun? Would you mind if we walk to school together?"

"I thought you always walk with Suzuhara-san and that friend of his... Aida-san, was it?"

"Yes, but I usually meet them further ahead by the bridge when they don't come to pick me up – but I'm sure that Touji and Kensuke wouldn't mind if you came along! If they haven't already left without me, that is..."

"Then we should better get going, I guess..."

"Oh, and Mitsurugi-kun?"

"...?"

"I want to thank you for the message you left me last week. It really helped."

"You don't need to thank me for that. I see it as my duty."

"...I admire you."

"...excuse me, but, for what reason?"

"It's just that it seems lately that just about everyone except for me can just go and do what they think is right without hesitating.:You, Misato-san, Ayanami, the Pilot of Unit Two. Except for me. I have to force myself at every step of the way, just to do what everyone says is the right thing to do..."

"But you're still doing it, aren't you? ...wait, did you say 'Unit _Two_?'?"

* * *

The remainder of their walk to school was occupied by conversation about sunday's events, in which Touji and Kensuke eagerly participated once Shinji and Nagato met up with them along their way.

Kensuke excitedly educated Mitsurugi about all the military vehicles, whereas Touji spent more time talking about Misato's cool attitude, her creative planning, and in particular her exeptionally attractive rear end, whereas Shinji filled the other three in on the parts that had taken place inside the entry plug or underwater, where it had been concealed from their eyes – though Shinji was not the most enthused of narrators, Touji and especially Kensuke did not mind as long as he was talking about cool battles and meekly answered their questions, though he kept some of the more embarrassing details to himself.

Kensuke and Touji had not particularly fussed over the happenstance that Mitsurugi was now somehow walking along with them, and despite Shinji's initial fears to the contrary, Nagato did not seem intimidated or off-put, though he never showed the same degree of eagerness.

But as differently as the three boys had chosen the focus of their narration, there was one point on which they call agreed: Asuka was _despicable_.

Alright, Shinji's choice of words might have been a little more subdued, but it was enough – Even Nagato's requests that they not use such foul language when referring to a girl ceased once he heard a detailed account of how she had 'greeted' the trio, even though he still hesitated to form a definite opinion on her.

"She's irascible, psychotic, stuck-up, fearsome, arrogant, cruel, self-absorbed, cold-hearted, childish, egocentric, violent, self-important, narcissistic, insane, hot-headed and all total bitch!" Touji and Kensuke reported convincingly, taking turns at coming up with unfriendly adjectives until they formed a chorus for the last one.

Mitsurugi didn't know whether to listen to his good upbringing or the sympathy he felt for Shinji and his friends.

"And I always thought our class rep was stuck-up!" Touji continued to rant. "It's a real waste since she was really cute, but she was probably the bitchiest bitch under the sun!"

"Can she really be _that_ bad?" Mitsurugi wondered, still in disbelief that such a dainty, lovely creature of a girl could inspire this amount of aversion.

"Yep!" Kensuke insisted. "Though it IS kinda cool that she's already a Captain even though she's no older than us!" Though he quickly corrected the slightly awed tone of his voice back downward. "But still, it's a relief that we'll never have to see her again."

"Indeed!" Touji agreed pointedly. "But our poor, unfortunate friend here is gonna have to deal with her at work! That deserves our sympathy, doesn't it?"

But Touji had celebrated too early – It might have been his comeuppance for all the bad karma he had amassed through his frequent violations of the school's dress code, but what his horror-stricken eyes gazed upon when he turned towards the sound of the door opened in case it was a teacher or the class representative was so abominable, that he tumbled off his chair from the shock, just to get back up a point both a trembling finger and a hearty "AAHHH!" at the person on the threshold.

But Touji probably wasn't the only one who'd have preferred to see just about anything else over there – The expressions of him, Kensuke and Shinji could each be rather fittingly described with the words 'Holy shit!', 'No, No, please no!' and 'Aww shoot!', whereas Mitsurugi, who had no missed the acute resemblance between his new aquaintances and Edvard Munch's 'The Scream' eyed the new arrival with a certain worry.

The frightening creature proceeded to ensure that no one (except perhaps a deaf-mute, but there were none of those present anyways) could have had the audacity to ignore her arrival by means of the chilling chalk screeches she produced as she wrote her name onto the blackboard in pretty, immaculate feminine handwriting.

Before she even turned around, her long, shining, copper-colored hair had caused the first few boys to gape at her rather impressively.

But the sugary-sweet voice with which she introduced herself revealed nothing of what lay behind her charming smile:

" _Hallo!_ My name is Shikinami Asuka Langley! Nice to meet you!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) The chapter quote? From the same Bleach Volume the last chapter was named after. Yeah, I sort of really really like Mr. Kubo's poetry. Expect to see most of them at some point or another. For anyone who doesn't know who he is, Mr. Kubo is the author of the popular Shonen Manga Bleach, which is basically your basic sword fighty shonen manga with some little artistic accents here and there. It's a guilty pleasure of mine. Ulquiorra! *squee* This one seemed particularly suitable for this chapter because the attraction & repulsion between people, in short, 'coexistence', is basically a huge part of Asuka-chans 'Thematic Stuffing', also, it marked the introduction of the 'aloof rival character' to the manga, and Asuka pretty much is your typical rival character. Initially hates teamwork? Check. Child prodigy? Check! Parallels with the MC's backstory? Check. Designed as contrast to MC ? Check! Outward arrogance with hidden inferiority complex? Check. Initially much more skilled, then takes it very badly when MC overtakes her? Check. More methodical, pragmatic thinker to contrast the hero's impulsive and naive ones? Check. 'Lancer'-like dynamics, ie, calls BS on what the hero does and presents an alternate set of values? Check. Extremely competitive and obsessed with 'winning'´? Double-check!... The only abnormality of sorts is that in any other anime, Shinji would be the one with the red mecha.
> 
> (2) "Yui Ichijo", complete with name and outfit, is borrowed from this character sketch from the proposal: . which probably used to be some alternative character-design for Rei. This will eventually make perfect sense. Or so I hope.
> 
> (3) Nooo, Shin-chan, you mustn't run away~ But of course he's gone into full denial mode, because, he would, wouldn't he?
> 
> (4) The story will soon be continued in Chapter 03: [Das Modell]


	22. 03: [Das Modell]

_Sie ist ein Model und sie sieht gut aus_

_Ich nähm' sie heut' gerne mit zu mir nachhaus_

_Sie wirkt so kühl, an sie kommt niemand rann_

_Doch vor der Kamera, da zeigt sie was sie kann  
_

__Sie trinkt in Nachtclubs immer Sekt – korrekt!_ _

_Und hat hier schon alle Männer "abgecheckt"_

_Im Scheinwerferlicht, ihr junges Lächeln strahlt_

_Sie sieht gut aus, und Schönheit wird bezahlt  
_

__Sie stellt sich zur schau für das Konsumprodukt_ _

_Und wird von Millionen Augen angeguckt_

_Ihr neues Titelbild ist einfach fabelhaft!_

_Ich muss sie wieder sehen, ich glaub' sie hat's geschafft  
_

__-Rammstein, -das Modell (Kraftwerk Cover)_ _

__[:]_ _

__She is a model and she looks great_ _

__I'd like to take her back home with me today_ _

__She seems so cool, no one can get close to her_ _

__but in front of the camera, she shows what she can do_ _

__She always drinks champagne in night clubs – correctly!_ _

__And has already 'checked out' all men around here_ _

__In the spotlight, hr youthful smile shines_ _

__She looks great and beauty gets paid_ _

__She exhibits herself for public consumption_ _

__And gets looked at by millions of eyes_ _

__Her new cover picture is simply marvellous!_ _

__I need to see her again, I think she's done it_ _

Perfectly even, always smooth, regular, and forever safe from the ravages of time – such was the skin of the perfect little girl.

Flawlessly perfect, _made_ to be perfect, the plastic had been molded in the seductive, though not all that realistic, exaggerated proportions of a small child, knowing well that the little lady would be so much more adept at inviting the glanced of others onto her as that other child, which was made out of somewhat different polymers.

Neither macromolecules were all that different from the others, both had a spine made out of carbon atoms, but the little plastic child had her perfection, and that gave her a clear advantage.

Her big, blue eyes and her tiny, button nose would never grow out of the most ideal, most endearing proportions, and neither would her tender cheeks lose their lovely color, nor would one of her little red locks fall out of place or lose its very special red color – And never would her sweet little eyes tire, always ready to expectantly and charmingly look up at the dirty brats that came to admire her.

Oh, and what a perfect little dress the perfect little girl was wearing!

Such a bright and pretty red that put to shame all roses, all strawberries, and the streak on the moon! Oh, how grey and fallow was everything else compared to that brightest red!

The dress might not have been as perfect as the perfect little girl, but she still loved to wear it; Once, her mommy had torn it up and pulled at the spot where she had once stitched in her same, so that it would always be clear that this dress belonged to one very special little girl;

A girl so pretty and beloved and desirable and perfect, that her mommy could not help but love her very much; For her mommy had made her perfect, and that's why she would always have to remain perfect, so her mommy would keep loving her, and so she would refrain from trying to kill her again and bring even more scarred imperfections onto her dress.

Thus, the perfect child always made an effort to talk in her sweetest, cutest, most perfect voice, and to sound just as happy, as a perfect girl always had to be: "I'm different from everyone else!" she explained proudly, excitedly moving her tiny arms in a joyous dance, just like happy little girls should. "I am very, very special! And because of that...

...you can't rely on anyone but yourself, Asuka."

And then, the perfect little girl was violently flung into the next corner by the other child, a terribly ugly, naughty child, where she flew into a tower of cardboard boxes and slid to the floor, all alone and abandoned, cold, motionless and without any will of her own to drive her onwards.

A little more than a week after Tokyo-3 had last become a battleground, peace and normalcy seemed to have returned, at least in appearance – There was no choice.

Even if this quiet only preceded a storm that was already balling itself together on the far horizon, all fear in the world would not change people's desires to eat and buy material comforts, and thus, the show had to go on.

Everyone cheerfully indulged in the illusion that they were foolish enough to put the danger out of mind as soon as it was out of mind, and instead, chose to feel their fear in secret, in the shadows of the cleaning vehicles that had not yet finished to swipe all of the blood left behind by the blue crystalline angel off the cities many buildings.

Without the means to do anything about its source, open fear would be of no use anyways.

Thus, the sun continued to rise as it did every morning, without anyone expressing any surprise that it did, or taking the time to observe the spectacle in the fear that they might never get another opportunity to do so.

Instead of moist eyes and relieved signs, it was the turning of many buildings that greeted the dissipation of the morning mist, automatically switching positions after having spent the night pointing in the direction where they had last seen our world's central star in the evening.

Caressed by the first, gentle rays of morning, uncounted solar panels turned toward the brightest spot in the sky, to pump yet more of the eternal summer's gifts into the power grid, where they were desperately needed – for along with the buildings, the people were also beginning to stir, and with them, the usual work traffic.

Not all of them had chosen to walk on foot or use their bikes to cross the walkways and greenery, therefore, trams had to be moved, switches had to be flipped to divert trains, and traffic lights needed to be powered;

Overhead, planes that had recently flung into the air floated over the multitudes that were checking their watches, waiting for lights to turn green, reading newspapers or just going about their way in a daze as if still half-asleep – wherever one looked, the city's quickening pulse was beginning to pump unnumbered masses through its streets in order to revitalize it, much like their own hearts pumped the blood through their bodies.

Here or there, one could occasionally spot some of those rare people, that did not seem to be in any great hurry – one of those unhurried people could be seen descending an escalator from a street crossing.

It was a melancholy young man in an unassuming school uniform, who'd only counted himself among the city's inhabitants for about two months.

He might not look it, but it was thanks to this unassuming boy, who seemed too zoned out to pay much heed to anything other than whatever was playing on the Walkman he was carrying, that his fellow citizens had received the necessary respite to sustain their lively lifestyles – He was Ikari Shinji, the Third Child, designated pilot of the humanoid war machine Evangelion Unit 01.

After he'd fixed breakfast for himself, his caretaker (whom he'd ended up taking care _of_ most of the time) and her house-penguin and taken care of any leftover household affairs, he'd departed to go to school, as he usually did on most weekdays such as the present Tuesday.

Typically, his way to school involved using this crossing and, occasionally, finding his friends waiting at the bottom, as he did today.

Usually, that sight alone was enough to brighten his face – Having friends was something the fourteen-year old had only recently become used to. The memories of the days in wich he'd rarely ever found the confidence to talk to his peers were still fresh in the memory, and continued to serve as a source of gratitude and appreciation now that they had become a part of the past. Still not quite believing his fortune, he'd pluck his headphones from his ears, walk up to the boys in joyous expectation, and greeted them with a few hesitant but sincere words.

The small group that had assembled itself near the bottom of the escalator consisted not only of the 'savior of the earth', who would have been rare curiosity by himself, but also of a bunch of other ingredients that one would not have expected in one place – among others, it was composed of the 'great hero's best friend, designated class clown Suzuhara Touji, a rather energetic but nonetheless reliable fellow, also a dedicated big brother and avid basketball player, as well as Aida Kensuke, the local military nerd, an intelligent, well-informed youth with a good understanding of people, as much as these qualities were occasionally obscured by his reckless, adventurous streak.

The fourth boy in their circle had only recently begun to associate with the curious threesome, by now known as the reserved A-student Mitsurugi Nagato, had proven himself to be a polite and sensible member of society once the other had gotten around to spend some time with him; Some might have been surprise that such an ostensibly serious person had chosen to associate with some of the legendarily silly members of the class community, though he did seem to fit with the groups apparent theme of not fitting together at all.

Himself a recent member and still in disbelief about the in his opinion not entirely deserved fortune that had fallen into his lap, Shinji had nonetheless been the one to lead the newest person into their group, which the others accepted without even a comment.

It had certainly been a precious experience, and one of the many things that maintained the thin smile he continued to wear until he reached the school, a path he no longer took by himself, but usually in a group of three or, most recently, occasionally in a group of four.

After a few minuted filled with vivid conversation, the four of them reached the school building, whose white facade almost seemed to shine in the intense sunlight.

But the thicker the stream of uniformed students got, the more the boys heard of a certain name that was wandering through everyone's mouths, and reminded them of the one thing that had _not_ gone back to normal, and probably never would – the once empty desk one row to the right and one row behind that of the class representative was no longer empty, but had become the lair of the cruel beast known as Shikinami Asuka Langley.

All throughout the school, there was hardly a person who talked of anything else anymore, she was the uncontested number one topic from dusk to dawn, everyone started discussing her latest stunts the moment the teachers weren't looking.

Everyone wanted to be with her or be her. The girls lined up to become her friends or learn her secrets, whereas the boys didn't stop gawking at her athletic physique.

Asuka here, Asuka there... If Shinji had become one of the established school hotties the moment his 'side job' had become public knowledge, then Asuka's insistence on wearing her nerve clips as near-permanent hair accessories assured that no one would forget her identity as EVA 02's pilot for as much as five minutes – thus, the male and lesbian population of the school community now had their own starlet to drool over, and her showy, extroverted personality suited her new found fame better than Shinji's ever had.

But while the shy Third Child had gone unnoticed for the first three weeks, Asuka ensured from day one that everyone would know her name, rank and occupation, and swiftly advanced to the top of that cadre of popular girls who got to decide what was to be considered 'cool' or 'in', or who could be terrorized without repercussions.

Over the course of the week, perhaps motivated by a desire to take retroactive revenge for the loss of his unfortunate cap, Touji had decided that he and Kensuke should at least get a little bit of profit out of the situation by supplying the horny, hormone-crazed masses with pictures of the newly established school-diva, some of which appeared to have been shot from... interesting angles and might have gone on to be used to spark the occasional student's imagination during their... late night activities.

Touji had the idea after the copies of Kensuke's cinematic recordings of the battle and the aircraft carrier had not only been a hit with his fellow nerds, but proven very popular among regular students of both sexes, who, depending on their sexual orientation, couldn't wait to see their 'adorable Ikari-kun' or 'sexy Shikinami' in action – it was truly fortunate that both had been sitting in that Evangeline at the first time.

After the forging their diabolic plan, the two had ditched both Shinji and Mitsurugi (whi ight have had ethical reservations about the plan or feared the wrath of a certain unpleasant EVA-pilot) and started working:

Asuka in a crowd of her brand new girlfriends, Asuka quenching her thirst on a drinking fountain, (in whose place the buyers would probably picture something rather different), Asuka walking past a few miffed, jealous girls in all of her glamor, Asuka in her sparse PE outfit, or in the process of removing it...

Click, click, click! And the moment was captured on film for eternity, ready to make both boys a fortune.

Many of the pictures were blurry, unfocussed or showed far more of the class representative's back than of Asuka (for reasons that surely had nothing to do with Touji having been the photographer), but even so,

But the little videoclip, in which Asuka callously trampled the mountain of love letters that had tumbled out of her locker one morning was something the boys would be keeping for themselves – bursting the bubbles of those poor lovesick suckers was neither nice nor good for business.

All in all, the trade with these little pictures had turned out to be a lucrative venture, the profit of which the boys intended to invest in replacing the cap and camera lens that had not survived their first encounter with the Teutonic fury.

It had been good luck within bad luck that Asuka was admittedly very attractive despite her caustic personality: Those pictures would not be nearly as lucrative if her sugary act revealed the frights of her true nature – Having seen plenty of it during the past week, during which they had been regularly pestered and christened with the unpleasant but catchy term 'idiot quartet', they would not have paid a single Yen for it, but rather given others money to get away from her.

But unfortunately, all the money in the world could not have saved Shinji from being singled out for her torment.

Walking past his friends like they were potato sacks, the newest horror of Tokyo 3 came sauntering towards him.

It spoke for Asuka's fearsomeness, that the mere sound of her voice was enough to get a fearful shudder out of a boy who'd charged an over-earthly monster with a knife not too long ago, though that description probably made Shinji sound tougher than he really was.

Deliberately ignoring the male pilot's visible apprehension, Asuka strolled way further into his personal space than he was comfortable with, and adressed him with a unmerited cheer that was most likely intended to assert her superiority, using words from some foreign language whose mastery she often flaunted.

In part because he was a polite person who preferred to avoid confrontations, but also because he hoped to escape further humiliation this way, he forced himself to smile despite the fear and aversion he didn't fully manage to hide, and tried to repeat the part of her statement that had sounded like a general greeting as well as his inexperienced tongue could reproduce them.

But his efforts were in vain, as she continued her advance toward him and brought her hand uncomfortably close to his face – an omen which revealed that he was unlikely to have evaded today's dose of pain.

"Geez!" she complained almost casually, as if picking him on in public were no big deal – by now, a swarm of nosy, worried or jealous students had assembled itself around them, which filled Shinji with the desire to disappear into the depths of the earth – Large crowds had always made him nervous and uncertain, there were far too many people for him to keep track of, so many eyes on his every move, so much hushed talking – He only understood half of it, and his reconstructions of what the other half might be wee likely distorted by his pessimistic self-assesments.

The most awkward parts of the crowd might be those who were either jealous or hoping to find out if their popular competition was finally 'taken' (which they somehow meant to deduce from whom they might talk to). Shinji couldn't stand being the center of attention – but that girl seemed to _relish_ in it, delighting in his misfortune and bolstering her ego with every spectator. It's like she did not truly feel awake in the morning before she'd bathed in the spotlight, and had little scruples to pull him into her performance for the sake of her personal gratification, ruthlessly disregarding what feelings this might flood him with...

Once again, he was certain that he would never comprehend her.

"I can't believe you already look this gloomy in the morning!" Asuka chided with a dizzying playful ease, before flicking him across the forehead, touching it without hesitation like it was not part of someone else's personal space, but merely part of her own element – Out here, she was a fish in water, fast like an arrow and too slippery for it to be grabbed or stopped in its tracks. "If someone receives the honor of being greeted by me, they should cheer up! I'm the most popular girl at school!"

Once she'd had her fun, her interest in the now somewhat miserable-looking boy receded to the level she reserved for cold coffee, but before he could breathe a sigh of relief, she turned back to him after a few instants of scanning their surroundings, deciding that he was still of interest to her – or rather, the information she hoped to extract from his mouth.

"Oh yeah" she asked, almost casually. "Where is the other one?"

"The... other one?" Shinji repeated, wondering who could be meant by that rather general but clearly deprecative if not deliberately disrespectful appellation.

"Who do you mean?"

She looked at him as if he'd failed a simple grade school level math problem.

"Are you an idiot?" she complained, annoyedly placing her hands on her hips.

"The other pilot of course! I'm talking about the First Child, who else could it be?"

"Oh... you mean Ayanami..." he finally concluded, gesturing toward one of the unassuming benches on the edge of the schoolyard, where Rei would occasionally spend her breaks or wait for class whenever she wasn't just waiting in the classroom proper, a fact he was aware of because he'd made several attempts to approach her over the course of the last week.

The first few times he could not bring himself to say a single word and quickly made off the moment she showed any signs of noticing his impolite observation and looked up to him.

Once, he'd instead tried breaking the ice with a simple "Hello", to which she hadn't answered or otherwise reacted. He had a bit more success once he followed the greeting with questions, to which she would usually answer, if mostly in one-liners.

In addition, he often had trouble thinking of conversation topics beyond "How's it going?" and "So what have you been up to lately?" when in the blue-haired girl's presence. Though the latter had almost led to something like a conversation yesterday, when she'd answered it with a brief "I have beem reading." - He had since come to notice that she did that a lot, (for example, hadn't she been entertaining herself with a book when she'd awaited his awakening at his bedside?) and decided to ask her about it, asking her what she was reading. It turned out to be a collection of treatises about a strange, obscure branch of natural science he could not hope to understand in a hundred years, but when he'd asked the First Child if _she_ understood it, she'd answered with a curt yet unassuming "Yes." - Aparently, she'd borrowed the book from none other that Shinji's own father; When Shinji inquired how he was doing, he learned that he was, once again, away on a business trip.

One again he'd found himself painfully reminded of just how little he shared with the man who'd given him life – and how much closer the girl before him appeared to be to their common superior.

At the moment, he'd stuttered up something incoherent that was once meant to be a genuine compliment of Rei's intelligence, but couldn't help but wonder if his father would lend him books as well if he had any hope of understanding the complex, small-printed literature on his fields of expertise.

But however that might or might not be, today Rei was back on her usual spot with another thick door-stopper, and after a brief, ascertaining glance, Asuka had marched off in that direction before Shinji could give any further explanations.

In hindsight, he wondered why it had taken Asuka a whole week to show interest in one of the only two people who could fight beside her in this war; She had undoubtedly been aware of Rei's existence all along – If his memories weren't playing tricks on him, she'd mentioned it all the way back on the ship.

The crowd, especially its male components, followed, in part because they seemed to be expecting a catfight.

As Shinji had noticed as early as during their first meeting, Captain Shikinami enjoyed looking down at others – literally, if possible. If there was no skyscraper-sized Evangelion nearby, and she wasn't certain enough that the other person could easily be kicked to the ground, she'd have to do with standing on a nearby brick wall to get her fix as far as her feeling of superiority was concerned.

Her posture alone signaled that the redhaired EVA pilot considered herself very, very important, from the broad, spread-apart position of her legs to the hands on her hips – thus, she deemed it absolutely unacceptable that she'd have to speak someone to get their attention – her pride demanded that others ought to notice _her_.

But since her sense of reality seemed at last intact enough for her to realize that every reaction had to have at least some kind of direct cause, she sought to deiberately engineer the 'being noticed' part, which she did by rather penetratingly blocking the path of the sunbeams that illuminated Rei's literature.

But unlike Asuka, the pilot of Unit Zero was not exactly the hot-headed sort, so that her initial response consisted of little more than moving her book a little bit to the left – only when the Second Child took a further step to adjust her shadow to the book's new position and finally made the effort to greet the other girl in case she didn't catch that hint, either, did Rei finally raise her glance, not even turning around to face Asuka, but solely moving her eyes for the simple reason that this was enough to see her fellow pilot.

"So you are Ayanami Rei, the pilot of the prototype!"

The First Child continued to glance up at her without a word.

"I'm Asuka, Shikinami Asuka Langley, the pilot of unit 2!" she declared bombastically, with a not all that sincere smile which, along with the pointed use of the word 'prototype' , made her next offer sound more like a gesture of pitying condescension than real interest: "Let's be friends!"

"Why?" Rei answered quietly, already looking away once she'd sufficiently connected Asuka's face with her name and saw no further reason to continue looking at her.

She wasn't really well-versed at these types of things and they had never been part of her tasks, either, but as far as she understood it, friends were supposed to be individuals that one knew well, spent a lot of time with and felt a certain sympathy or affection for... Rei was barely familiar with the Second Child, so there was not even the logical possibility that she could like her – as in, having an absence of any positive opinion toward her, not necessarily the implication of anything negative, for which there was not yet a reason, either... so what could be the intention behind that offer?

"Because it would be... quite convenient?" Asuka answered somewhat dumbfounded, gesturing with one arm. That there was anyone who might _not_ jump at a chance to be friends with such an awesome, attractive and popular member of the elite such as herself eluded her comprehension... much more so if it was coming from this sort of freaky bird of paradise who could barely call herself an EVA pilot at all, having been given that old, trashy prototype that was almost ripe or the garbage dump. Even a complete idiot like the Third Child had managed to get himself at least _some_ friends, even if they were such a bunch of embarrassing monkeys (A loser, a nerd, a dumb jester and a teacher's pet, such natural enemies unified in perfect harmony... although it has been said that cats and dogs would be living together in the days before the end) , but here was this chick, sitting by herself in solitude in a corner like a complete loser – you'd think she'd be overjoyed to get such a great shot at improving her position – She ought to be ashamed for her ingratitude, but for the benefit of her apparently rather dense potential new friend, Asuka chose to keep playing it nice.

But make no mistake: She was immensely offended by the prospect that someone might not like her.

Though it was the next answer to her attempts at friendliness that led her to the conclusion that she was facing a lost cause:

"If I'm ordered to, I will."

Unlike the Second Child, Rei was not the kind of person who cared a lot about dominance, reputation or popularity, and did not really care, think about or even understand what perception – since she had very little experience in these kinds of things, she might not have been able to clearly describe herself as such if she had been asked to, but though she was not ultimately the sort to hold grudges and held a certain understated kindness for those whose hardship she might witness, she was not the sort to 'collect' friends and calculate some statement of worth from their mere number; Though she had not had the oportunity to really explore this at this point, she would have rather had the tendency to reveal herself to only small number of close confidants but treasure them all the more (as of the present, only the Commander existed in that sphere though he has a... complex case.)

But as of the moment, she could not detect any reason or desire to forge a bond with the Second Child – She merely answered her question. That she could have taken offense to this formulation did not occur to Rei, any more than she realized how her reference to 'orders' might have irritated the other girl – She'd simply added that caveat because 'No' would not have been the correct answer. If tomorrow she were to receive the instruction to befriend her, for example, to assure her loyalty or because it was deemed to boost their efficiency in battle, it would have become part of her task, an she'd have carried it out to the best of her ability like any other part of it, needless to say that it would take precedence over any personal preference she might have, a circumstance that, to Rei, was so much of a given that she did not separately mention it, even in thought – after all, Rei existed to carry out her task, and not the task for Rei.

Unaware of most these things, Asuka's first impression of her fellow pilot turned out rather sobering: "What's her damage, anyways?"

Off-put, the great Shikinami retreated into her Halo of sycophants, to whom she went on to complain about how antisocial 'The First' and how she supposedly thought she was better than her even though they were both fellow EVA pilots an Asuka had the more advanced architecture, how it was hardly a wonder that she was spoiled if her parents had allowed her to dye her hair such a garish, attention-grabbing color, and how she was the commander's favorite anyways.

Shinji figured that she'd get to hear the same stories he'd heard from Touji and Kensuke back in the day, about how Rei had never had any friends and various unfriendly speculations as to what the reasons were, about her being retarded or unlikeable and whatnot.

He was surprised that Rei didn't seem all that bothered by the whole event – She just sat there and continued reading her book. If he'd been in her place, he wouldn't have been able to handle having everyone talk about him like that – it was a nightmare come true. Intelligence and Strenght might not be the only advantages Rei had over him; One way or another, there could be no doubt that there was a deep gulf of a difference between both those girls and him... yes, even between him and Asuka. For all her despicabe qualities, she had no problem openly showing it when she had a problem with someone, whereas she'd probably rightly accused him of being a pushover... on the other hand, he was often merely trying to avoid fights and not upset anyone, something Asuka did not even seem to consider.

It was probably true that she had _some_ admirable qualities about her, but... Shinji was reluctant to employ strong words here, but he really, really, really didn't like her.

Having to hear her talking crap about Rei with her easily-new-found friends just exposed him to the uncomfortable sensation of wrath bubbling up inside him – What did Asuka know about Ayanami, anyways? Having gotten to know something about that girl, having seen her world (That tiny, empty apartment... those abandoned concrete buildings and his father), her worries ("I have nothing else.") and her strenght, the thought of walking over there and doing something about it _did_ briefly cross his mind, but it was discarded just as quickly. It figured that he'd prove himself to be a coward, and besides, he was unlikely to accomplish anything besides becoming the target of laughter himself... all the more surprising was it to hear Nagato's disgruntled voice beside him, bringing to lights the very same words his own soul had wanted to speak: "I don't want to overstep my bounds, but, is that the way they should be speaking of a girl who risked their life for the sake of all of us not too long ago? That's no way to speak about another human being, period..."

"...You're probably right in the end..." Touji replied. "...but it's not like I can't see where they're coming from. Don't get me wrong, Shinji, but you EVA pilots are quite the eccentric bunch..."

Kensuke could somewhat follow that conclusion, but reacted with more delight that skepticism: "So you think I'd fit right in?"

After the first sounding of the school bell, all students had relocated into their respective classrooms, EVA pilots included, leading to a math lesson where the actual math lasted little longer than five minutes, because the old teacher had gone on another ramble about Second Impact, until the students were all released by the sound of that same bell.

Much like his mornings, Shinji's schooldays- and breaks had returned to an utterly mundane, pleasant routine, that almost let him forget the complete un-normality of his situation and made the few moments where it inevitably bled through all the more jarring and grotesque.

Still, for the most part, he thought that it brought him genuine respite to spend the break talking with Kensuke, Touji and Nagato, sitting around one of their tables, forming a little group just like everyone else.

Before him, he saw a scene as it occurred almost every day now – Kensuke was in the process of presenting them some passionate explanation about something, Touji weighed it with the occasional comment, some of them humorous and others sceptically, whereas Nagato remained quiet but added his own elaborations when he felt that something held implications for society or the current political situation, busying his hands with a little puzzle-cube when the main topic didn't hold his full attention, which, at first, had somewhat bothered Touji – Kensuke was fond of the things himself and had some admiration for Nagato's skill, whereas Shinji had since learned to just ignore or accept the little unusual things about this place. But soon it had become clear that the bandaged boy was listening well enough despite his reluctance to put away his little toys.

'To his defense', Kensuke had jovially remarked that Nagato was probably still rather nervous around new people (especially such 'lively' ones) despite his reserved, measured exterior, and that it wasn't exactly uncommon for people not to know what to do with their hands when they were nervous. The older boy had then confirmed that theory through a hesitant nod – Shinji fand himself admiring Kensuke for that skill of pressing just the right buttons with others in order to understand them.

For his own part, Shinji had to admit that he had very little insight into the people in his immediate surroundings – even about Misato, or the two girls, in whose direction his gaze tended to derail itself whenever they happened to be in the same room – First and foremost, there was Ayanami, who was sitting at her usual desk and silently looking out o the window as she was wont to do. They were supposed to have grown closer since that no-longer-so-recent battle, but... he supposed that the exceptional situation would have catalyzed the exchange of their deeper feelings a little. In his day-to-day life, he still barely had the confidence to really approach her, but, what boy his age would have not reservations in talking to a pretty girl his age?

Especially a boy with limitations like his own. It was still not very encouraging to see her sitting all by herself in that corner.

But since last week, there was another pole in this classroom that magnetically attracted his looks – Shikinami Asuka.

Perhaps it was... because he was a tiny bit envious of her, or because they were supposed to be comrades despite everything...

Or perhaps it was because Touji would sometimes glance over in the process of complaining about her antics.

Usually, she would be surrounded by other girls and stand there laughing about some celebrity's most recent misfortune or the newest gossip, but the moments that really interested, even fascinated Shinji where the few occasions on which Asuka would be by herself, when she would, for example, lean against her desk and entertain herself with a handheld game.

Something like playing video games... probably didn't fit so well into the image that people had come to have of her around the school; Most likely, they overlooked it because it did seemed like a minor deviation from the appearance she otherwise presented, but, as crazy as it seemed, Shinji thought that in those moments, she almost looked like himself with his headphones, when she did, for once, not hold her head up high but downwards, and wasn't wearing that scary artificial brightness on her face, but instead looked annoyed, or even... downcast?

He had to think back to what he'd felt the moment just before they'd opened the seventh angel's jaws together. There had been some quality that reminded him of himself, who knows, maybe everything she showed to everyone else was just a mask... or maybe that was just what he _wanted_ to believe, that even Ms. Perfect had some human weakness somewhere.

Before he could even finish the thought that he might ever be able to feel sympathy towards her, he witnessed firsthand how she'd proceeded from stomping on people's love letters to planting her foot on their authors themselves, kicking down several boys that had been literally standing in line for a chance to confess to her or talk to her or something like a row of dominoes.

Figures that you'd have to be an action-movie worthy incarnation of manliness of Kaji's caliber to even be _noticed_ as a potential suitor by her.

No. There definitely wasn't the slightest hint of a similarity between himself and Shikinami; They might as well have been creatures from different planets, living in worlds as different from each other as this idyllic school life with friends and all was from the brutal world of battles that they could be pulled back into at any given moment – after all, by now, a whole week had passed without any angel attacks, the next one could be due at any moment... and still, subtle little things like the omnipresent nerve clips in Asuka's hair continued to remind him that both of these drastically different worlds were equally real parts of his life.

Both of them, and the beginnings of something even crazier... the old teacher had since erased it, but in the morning, when the classroom had first been unlocked, there was something written on the blackboard – A few only partially wiped math problems left over from yesterday, and a small, unassuming line of text in the lower left corner of the blackboard - "The world is wrong.", signed 'I.Y.'...

As to who that message was meant for, there could be no doubt, especially once Kensuke began to recount how the mysterious mass murderer hadn't claimed a new victim in weeks, and how people were now discussing what the cause might be...

Shinji had long since sunk all his attention into his friends' conversations when Asuka's seat received another visitor.

At first, she reacted to the soft, tentative 'Uhm...?' with a slightly annoyed, inquiring sound, but when she looked up to size up the other person, she was met with a surprise – before her stood not another one of her 'admirers', but a girl, one that did not belong to the usual crowd that would gather around her place. She had neatly parted dark brown hair tied into a pair of twin tails with some purple ornamental baubles, with brown eyes and freckles – the class representative, if she was not mistaken.

She did not exactly have the best reputation with the other girls – though some of the quieter, wallflower-ish girls had described her as an involved and dependable friend, the overall perception of her was not so favorable. Most students, especially the 'popular' ones tended to see her as a self-important busybody, a snitch and a killjoy. The Second Child could have listened to her new friends, told this chick to sod off, and give her hell merely for annoying her, but sh hesitated.

Truth be told, she did not feel any real affection for those easily swayed bimbos, she could tell they were opportunistic fairweather schmoozers who'd do just about anything to get in good graces with whoever happened to be the alpha males or females in a given setting, always following the leader almost like... dolls.

Asuka regarded those girls more as trophies than friends, swaying their attention was merely the proof she needed to be popular, and she did not think that this was a sad state of affairs... they didn't know her true self anyways, all they wanted was to bask in her rays.

But the class representative was... different. It was possible that she was here to improve her reputation, but just as likely that she defined respectability by entirely different terms than simple popularity, which would mean that she was after something else entirely.

Asuka decided to hear her out before deciding anything, probably in part because she still felt irritated about the whole deal with the first child. (Just why did the other pilots have to be )

"Uhm, Asuka-san?" she began, almost shyly, partially averting her gaze, not at all like the domineering person she tended to be described as."Would you like to eat lunch with me?"

That did not sound practiced, polished or put-on, but surprisingly... genuine.

"Uhm... okay..." Asuka answered, displaying an atypical moment of uncertainty; Usually, she tended to form her opinion about a person very quickly, often both preemptively and persistently, but for once, she really wasn't sure what to think of this whole situation.

The class representative smiled timidly.

"I'm so glad that I finally worked up the courage to talk to you." she admitted.

She'd admired Asuka's confidence and assertiveness ever since she first transferred into their class last week, and had wanted to become her friend, but thus far, she hadn't been able to find a good moment to approach her, since she tended to be surrounded by a cluster of girls. Hikari knew well enough that she was probably commonly thought off as the sort of girl that gives boys nightmares – She did not hold any ill will against anyone, but it was important for things to get done and to make sure that something resembling proper classes could take place now and then; She was concerned about the future of the very people who tended to write her off as a bitch.

"Your name is Hikari, isn't it?"

"Uh, yes..."

"Sorry? Could you perhaps tell me whee to find the main facilities of the technical division?"

When the person Kaji had addressed turned around, he was faced with a smiling man a little above his own age. Between his long, dark hair and the white coat he'd draped over his uniform, there was a bit of a stylish quality to him, even in the garb of a large organization.

"Well, I don't mind telling you, but I doubt that some directions will be of much use in this labyrinth. I have to go there myself, so I can show you the way. Where exactly do you wanna go, anyways? The test chambers for the Evanelions?"

The technician's eyes darted to Kaji's uniform. "...or perhaps the offices?"

"The offices will do. Speaking of which, do you have any clue whether Dr. Akagi currently happens to be in hers?"

"Yeah, I think so. She should still be looking through some data from the last battle. Follow after me."

"My, my, this please seems to have changed a lot..." Kaji commented after his 'guide' pulled his security card through one of the terminals, opening a door beyond which the leader of th e investigative department did not recognize much at all. "I've only been gone for two years, but I feel like a living fossil..."

"I know." the white-coated man replied. "I've only recently been transferred here myself, and I have to admit, it took me a while to find my new office."

He smiled a little more.

"Still, it's a shame that I didn't get to bringing this here any earlier." he pulled a thin picture frame from the NERV-issue bag that was slung over his shoulder, and proudly presented it to Kaji.

The picture showed the man in his younger years, next to a woman in a long red dress, with a toddler sitting on her lap. "I already brought some pictures of Kikyou and Nagato over there, but none where you can see all three of us together."

Though Kaji felt a bit stricken at those words, he maintained his smile.

On the picture, the technician and what he presumed to be his wife looked little older than he had been around the time Misato had dumped him.

Lies and concealment made everything much, much easier.

"You seem to have started the family planning rather early."

"Why wait, when you've found the right person?"

"Why indeed... unfortunately it happens that one not only needs to find them, but to _be_ found oneself. The thing about 'the one' is that, like you can tell from the expression, there's only one, and if you screw it up, you don't always get a second chance..."

"Did you get yours?"

"I wonder; If so, I doubt that it's particularly much of a chance. But well, in the end, there's lots of fish in the water..."

"You should try anyway; I'll be rooting for you. If it's really the one, it will be worth the try one way or another... oh, this is my office. You'll find Dr. Akagi's at the other end of the corridor. You can't possibly miss it, it's the door next to that big glass panel.

It was nice talking to you. These days, most people underestimate the rewards of a nice little chat. I'm expecting fruitful cooperation, Mister..."

"Kaji. Ryouji Kaji, investigations department."

"Mitsurugi Minoru, technical division. Pleased to meet you. See you around!"

Whereas school allowed the Children the occasional break from EVA operations, a few hundred meters below, Ritsuko was not so lucky – Her ashtray and coffee cup had to be enough for relaxation, and her little cat figurines had to suffice as company – though they performed admirably, as their mistress had some very interesting data to look through; Even after weeks of dissection, the results of the double piloting incident, supposedly a spontaneous idea of the Second Child, had posed a lot of interesting questions whose answers they could only guess at, but they still had to to extract as much conclusions and information from those records as they possibly could with such a sparse evidence situation.

Since the situation had involved mortal danger, it was not exactly something they could easily repeat under controlled conditions, but they had to be ready if some circumstance allowed them to draw or confirm further conclusions, many theoretical scenarious had to be drawn up, considered and their outcomes calculated under different assumptions, knowing well that the actual outcomes might resemble neither of their predictions.

It never would have occurred to her to complain about the amount of her work – that would have been like complaining about the air or the existence of trees; In her life, work formed the most omnipresent, most basic fabric, the canvas on which her days unfolded – but despite what some might presume, none of that meant that she wouldn't enjoy a warm touch, or that she wouldn't feel flattered if a man embraced her from behind and quite audaciously placed his hand on her left breast.

She swiftly recognized just which old charmer was responsible for this maneuver, and thought to have already guessed at its true purpose, but she didn't resist either way, even gladly accepted the gesture, even gleefully closing her eyes for a moment as his well-practiced hands went to work on her breast, on which the size of his hands didn't quite seem to fit.

It was true that she was in what she considered a committed relationship at this moment, but right now, her latest backlog in tiny moments of wrath almost casually took the helm, wrath that existed exactly because her so-called 'boyfriend' was unlikely to feel all that much personal jealousy over this, and had not been him who'd systematically destroyed all functions of her soul which would have enabled her to feel regret back when he had corrupted her? It was not like she'd decided that she did not owe that man any loyalty because he would never take her into this sort of romantic embrace, never whispered sweet nothings and generally didn't act like much of a lover; She was simply in love with him and refusing to accept that he had no interest in anything other than her skill and reliability as an underling; So, she simply didn't think of him and simply let it happen – why should she contort the artificial makeup-caked face reflected on her computer screen?

"Could it be that you've lost a bit of weight, Rit-chan?" the familiar voice of Kaji Ryoji whispered seductively, letting the weight of his weight rest on her shoulder and thus shrewdly reducing the distance between the centers of their masses to zero.

"Oh, what makes you think that?" she replied playfully, reciprocating his little game with at least passing interest.

"You must be going through some heartache." he concluded with the charm of a professional casanova. "Is that so?" she asked, tangentially curious about how his choice of pick-up-lines had managed to strikes this close to the truth, close enough to evaporate at least a minute portion of her relaxation, enough to strain her smile to a degree too subtle for Kaji to notice.

By the time he touched her lips with his large, masculine hands and their scent of smoke, earth and work, and thus gently invited her to turn her face toward him, they looked as picture-perfect as the ruby-red waterproof lipstick that resided on them.

"That is because a woman with a mole in the path of her tears is destined to cry a great many of them."

She distantly observed that part of what made Kaji's sweet talk so effective was that he managed to keep a flawless straight face throughout it, like he might as well be talking about the latest worrisome philosophical developments or deep philosophical truths.

Ritsuko recognized it for the cheap trick that it was, but had to admit that she found it pleasantly refreshing. She began to imagine what these words might sound like if they had spoken in the voice of a certain other man.

"I must admit that your strategy is pretty refined, but there's one significant miscalculation in it: Unfortunately, I've actually gained 1570 grams."

"Oh?" He did not allow himself to be daunted or dissuaded for a moment, but only proceeded to pull her more tightly into his embrace, framing her face between the hand that was not busy with her breast, and his own face which was warm though covered in pointy stubble.

The soft touch of a real skin, an used, adult hand that had lost its youthful softness, but still retained its human warmth.

Of what a difference it was, how much more more real it felt from the simple addition of real, fragrant skin that wasn't concealed behind some bone-white mask, which his a hallowed ground consecrated to someone else, and converted the touch she yearned from into the stabs of a dagger, by reminding her that even though she might have been naked before him in body and soul, he most certainly wasn't, that he was marked, disfigured for the sake of the copy of a copy of something for which she was a replacement's replacement, just barely fitting the pattern because her eyes happened to be a similar shade of green, because she had such fair skin and her hair was not much longer...

Of course, she knew that this, too, was a game and a lie, but there was a point after which a lie had been imbued with so much art and finesse that it was closer to being a fairytale, an epic even.

A beautiful, pleasant lie, exactly like a dream – oh, why couldn't he even make an effort to lie to her, given the autoatic ease with which he usually tended to spit out untruths, like vending machine releasing cans.

"I'd like to confirm that with my own eyes..." Kaji whispered.

"Alright, but I should probably remind you that this room is under constant surveilance."

"No problem!" he declared with a James-Bond-esque coolness that was probably somewhat mitigated the thick accent sticking to the English words, that nonetheless added an endearing quality.

"I've already fed an endless loop into the surveillance system."

"You really think of everything, don't you."

"I just don't like losing."

"Is that so? Then I'm very sorry, because you've already lost." Ritsuko disentagled herself from his arms. It had been a nice little game, but part of being an adult was to recognize when playtime was over. "A _scaaaary_ lady is watching us."

And indeed – Misato looked as if the contents of her head were about to build over, and the glass next to her face cloudy with her perspiration.

She felt a little 'found out', bit but pigs would fly before she admitted that. If anyone ought to be ashamed, it was him, to be making out here in plain view like some kind of special discount offer in a shop window – quite possible that he'd have presented anyone unlucky enough to walk past this window with a free pornographic flick if he'd found a willing co-conspirator. What was he thinking, to hit on people right in front her, and to go for her best friend, at that? N-Not that she was in any way jealous, or anything, quite the opposite! It just confirmed her long-standing opinion that this man was disgusting, a slave of the same hormones that fertilized the pointy hair growing on his face.

Who'd ever get jealous over him? Certainly not Misato! And still, that guy had the nerve to act as if nothing had happened and continue his conversations just like that.

"It's been a long while, Ryo-chan." Ritsuko greeted, as usual a bit more practiced in the art of keeping her cool.

"Yes, too long."

"I must admit you're not quite as discrete as I remembered you."

"He's never been 'discrete' in his life!" Misato protested as she angrily marched into the room. "What are you doing here and why the hell aren't you back in Europe yet? Unit 02 has been transferred safely, so why haven't you left already?"

He either failed to notice her anger or had chosen to ignore in his bid to thoroughly ruin her day. It's like he took every 'No' for a 'Yes' and every 'piss off' for a declaration of love.

"I was officially notified of my transfer this morning." he recounted, his stupid, annoying grin not faltering for a minute. "Looks like I'll be staying here for quite a while. The three of us can hang out together, just like we did in college!"

"I have absolutely no intention of recapitulating the olden days with you!" Misato retorted indignantly. "I just have some business with Ritsuko! The transfer of Asuka's personal data is finished. That's it!

And anyways, just what makes you think that anyone could ever want to-"

Before the leader of the operations division could further demonstrate her skill in the art of the cold shoulder (or any lack thereof), the wall behind her lit up with hexagonal alarm symbols, calling every man or woman to their posts, which was further underlined by the blaring klaxons that resounded through the complex.

"...an Angel Attack?" Misato concluded, quickly flipping from 'malcontent toddler' to 'Lara Croft mode' before anyone could get in any further snappy comebacks.

"I'll see you in Central Dogma!" she declared, briefly making eye contact with as the automatic door was opening.

One second later, she'd turned around and ran away.

"She seems jealous." Ritsuko commented as she stood up and gathered up her things, with due swiftness but without exessive rush. "Ryo-chan, you might still have a chance."

"Well..." the badly-shaven man replied with a shrug. "It _is_ said that one should never give up hope."

{{!}}

Between the LCL that soaked her form and the long, blue hair that surrounded her like a cloak, and the lumps of shapeless twitching flesh scattered around her, parts of which were in the process of coalescing from or disintegrating into their liquid state, the being classified as 'Leatha' suddenly averted her gaze from her handiwork, looking upwards, to where she had sensed a potential disturbance to her plans.

Stinking of blood and guts, in the nude to avoid her garments being soaked with the products of her work, she rose from where she had been kneeling to continue her unholy labor, and stood up to her full height.

It might seem like she had simply fixated an arbitrary point on the tin walls on the warehouse she was working in, but in truth, her stare was meant for something that lay far beyond that wall.

It looked like this would once again delay her ventures a little – To continue, she'd have to wait until that bothersome child which had come to conquer the world in Adam's name had been consigned to the past – As far as she has proceeded with her undertakings up to this point, there was a good chance that Adam's annoying brood might detect her activities.

To call it 'hope' would have been an overstatement, much like even deeming 'Leatha' capable of producing such a sentiment, but she decided that it would be most preferable if this resolved itself quickly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look forward to the next part: 04: [THE LONE AMAZON]


	23. 04: [THE LONE AMAZON]

 

****04: [THE LONE AMAZON]** **

 

* * *

 

__Don't do love, don't do friends_ _

_I'm only after success_

_Don't need a relationship_

_I'll never soften my grip  
 _

__Don't want cash, don't want car_ _

_Want it fast, want it hard_

_Don't need money, don't need fame_

_I just want to make a change_

_I just wanna change  
 _

__I know exactly what I want and who I want to be_ _

_I know exactly why I walk and talk like a machine_

_I'm now becoming my own self-fulfilled prophecy_

_Oh, oh no, oh no, oh no  
 _

__One track mind, one track heart_ _

_If I fail, I'll fall apart_

_Maybe it is all a test_

_Cause I feel like I'm the worst_

_So I always act like I'm the best  
 _

__If you are not very careful_ _

_Your possessions will possess you_

_TV taught me how to feel_

_Now real life has no appeal_

_It has no appeal  
 _

**_[…]_ ** _  
_

__I'm gonna live, I'm gonna fly,_ _

_I'm gonna fail, I'm gonna die,_

_I'm gonna live, I'm gonna fly_

_I'm gonna fail, gonna die  
 _

__-Marina and the Diamonds, ‘Oh no’_ _

 

 

* * *

 

 

When the alarm sounded, Shinji had been racking his brains over a particularly frustrating physics problem, for which the equations – if he'd even used the correct ones and remembered them correctly – just refused to spit out any sort of sensible results. But though the shrill klaxon came with the promise that he would not be expected to finish the calculations under his nose, it was not a reason for relief.

Quite the opposite, though the wave of apprehension that shot through his body was no longer as sharp as he'd expected it to be – it was more of a somber acknowledgment of the threat, but no longer that extreme paralyzing panic...He'd been expecting the next angel lately, and one hand would no longer have been enough to count the times he'd already gone through that whole procedure.

Of course he was still worried, but the experience was barely compared with what he'd gone through in the moments leading up to his first few moment – duty called, and, unfortunately, so did Asuka.

“Are you an idiot or something? Why do you keep sitting there and staring at the air? We've gotta get going!”

The Second Child had already jumped out of her seat, Rei was on her feet as well, and for that matter, so was most of their class – Hikari had reacted fast and called for everyone to leave the room in an orderly manner, in a commanding stone that had nothing to envy from the alarm klaxons.

Many students turned back to wave at the pilots or wish them luck.

“Go Shinji! Show those beasts who's boss!” Touji hollered.

“Yeah! Just like the last times!” Kensuke added. “It's a pity that we can't come and watch the battle....”

“Don't even think of it!” Hikari clarified, still remembering what had happened the last time the freckled boy had thought of this sort of idea. “And stay safe, Asuka-san. Good luck! And of course the same goes for you two. Be careful!”

Most of the boys cheered for Asuka, a good portion of the girls for Shinji, and now and then, even Rei got mentioned for completeness' sake.

Not much for exuberant gestures, Nagato just sent a silent, confident smile in Shinji's direction. Even the teacher, who probably had a nice side when she wasn't torturing innocent students with physics, stopped to wish the pilot trio success.

But as their cheering classmates proceeded to vacate the room and march away, Asukas complaints increasingly dominated the local soundscape “How much longer are you going to take? Move your ass!” She licked her lips in what might have been anticipation or even a hint of sadistic excitement. “Today is going to be my great debut in Japan, my chance to finally show everyone what I can do, and I don't want to be late because you stayed glued to your chair like an idiot!”

“Yes, I'm... I'm coming....” Shinji answered as he rose from his seat. He had to admit that he'd really been a little distracted, but he had to admit that he simply wasn't used to being trusted in such a way by so many people, to even have that many _noticing_ let alone _talking_ to him. He was still not used to it, but neither did it frighten him as much as he had in the beginning... the fear to disappoint all their expectations.

Instead, he was almost beginning to feel a thin sliver of confidence, he was actually wearing something like a very thin smile as he sped towards headquarters.

 

He... would surely manage.

* * *

  By the time the pilots had arrived at headquarters, the angel had already been identified, localized and confirmed as such, all while the Evangelions had been prepped for transportation:

As the city's defense systems had yet to be fully repaired from the past week's altercation, especially since all the artillery batteries distributed around the fortress-town had been used as cannon fodder in the battle, and had therefore been processed into mere lumps of molten metal by the Sixth angel, it had been decided to intercept the Eighth Angel before it reached the mainland – For that purpose, the Units One and Two were to be deployed, as the EVA prototype happened to be every bit as demolished as the defense systems.

Therefore, Rei had been ordered to remain on standby, waiting at their base as a last reserve for the most extreme of emergencies, in case the angel somehow got past the other two and could not be stopped by any other means.

Shinji and Asuka, however, were loaded into a pair of those nifty transport aircraft along with their Evangelions, of the sort that at least Shinji himself had already become acquainted with before his battle with Jet alone.

Meanwhile, Misato, Dr. Akagi and several other technicians departed in a series of somewhat less cool but altogether sufficiently functional vehicles that would serve as a mobile control center - The Subcommander remained behind to oversee the operation from headquarters.

Shinji's father turned out to be out of town, much like Rei had said.

As one might have expected of NERV's tendency to be prepared for every scenario their imagination could have conceived of, all of the components had reached the coastline reached within a short time, and been used to set up a provisional basis long before the angel even came into their sights – like many of its predecessors, it was projected to attack from the depths of the red Ocean.

It was, as Misato secretly suspected, perhaps fate that the spot where the MAGI expected the angel to reach the land according to its current course happened to fall close to a city that had been partially destroyed after Second Impact and subsequently rebuilt at a safe distance from the coast – here before them loomed some of the "Old Town"'s crumbling remains, the taller of the wrecked, half-submerged buildings littering the coastline.

"So ..." she began, clinging to a pole located on the ceiling and talking into a communication device, while some of her subordinates – among them Ibuki and Hyuuga – typed away at their consoles behind her.

On the wall in front of her, there were a clock and two screens, both of which displayed active, open channels to both Evangelions, on which both of the children could be seen sitting in their respective entry plugs.

"We are going to engage the Angel at close range. EVA Units 01 and 02 will take turns in attacking the targed.. "

"Got it." Shinji confirmed.

But Asuka, or rather her huge, greedy ego, saw a serious problem with this plan: " _Menno!_ This is supposed to be by great debut in Japan, I'd really like to know why I'm not allowed to fight alone!"

"It can't be helped, that's not the plan." Shinji explained, in an attempt to placate his red-headed comerade with a friendly smile before the true fight would begin.

But somehow, he only succeeded in making her even angrier: "Just don't get in my way." she snapped at him, sufficiently loud and bossy to cause him to shrink back from her mere image on the interface screen.

This just confirmed to her once more what sort of meek little wimp she was dealing with.

"Even if he _is_ the commander,just how did your old man ever manage to get _you_ selected as an EVA pilot?"

Shinji sighed.

No matter whether he reacted with hostility or kindness, all she ever did was get mad at him. By nature, he tended to be a fairly peaceful guy who preferred almost anything to an open dispute and was usually willing to look the other way (often because she lacked the courage to actually protest ...) but this girl was __very_ _ irritating. He could make even less sense of her than of this morning's confusing physics problem – If it were him, he'd just be grateful that there was a plan to fall back on and someone to fight at his side.

All things considered, he'd really rather have Ayanami with him right now, but beggars couldn't be choosers, and it was time for the landing - Asuka went first, retracting the locking pin that kept the EVA attached the transport plane unlocking and letting herself gracefully glide toward the countryside.

Shinji himself followed suit with a short delay, so that he touched down on the sand about a second after she did, after which they both waited to be fitted with the power cables that had previously been set up on-site.

"...Attacking two-on one is hardly a fair fight..." Asuka commented while pulling her weapon out of a passing transport vehicle.

Unlike Shinji, who had opted for a regular old riffle that could be operated simply and intuitively from a safe distance, her choice was driven less by strategical efficiency or any fear of losing her nerve in an unfavorable situation, and much more by a desire to show off, or as she would call it, 'elegance', pompously brandishing an enormous battle axe with two gigantic, shining blades that would have driven any self-respecting viking mad with envy.

"…I don't like this."

"This is not a game, Asuka. When it comes to the salvation of mankind, we have no choice but to play it safe." Misato reminded her from down in the provisinal base.

After the last of the preparations were concluded with a fortunate swiftness, both pilots had their biological war machines rise to their full heights and readied themselves for battle.

It was Shinji who first noticed the angel swimming towards them, leaning forward to grab the controls as he outfitted his face with a somber expression appropriate for the occasion, warning his comrade with a quiet “It's coming.”

As if the angel had somehow felt that it had been found, it chose to show itself the very moment he was done talking.

A column of water shot upwards from the scarlet tides with explosive force, only to rain down around the being that had creating them, adorning its surroundings with a rainbow.

This angel bore a slight resemblance to the first one Shinji had encountered – It, too, consisted mostly of a rubber-like, dark greenish material, but in addition to rib-like protrusions resembling those of it's distant predecessor, it had large areas of its body covered by a reflective, metallic shell, coating the inner side of its legs and the arch formed by the upper side of its torso all the way to the tips of its arms, ending in small avian claws.

The creature had also something that had very distant resemblance to a face, a round area capable of turning itself that enclosed two holes, which were probably be supposed to be eyes, and a furrow, which parted it like a ying-yang symbol.

So that was the latest enemy ... Shinji wished that there way some way to gauge the relative strength of these things based on their forms – some of them had this bill-like face, but otherwise, not one of them had looked like another.

"Attack!" Misato ordered.

Without warning, Asuka set her EVA into motion and ran ahead without giving Shinji any time to react. "I'm going first! Cover for me! "

"C-Cover?"

"Sure! Ladies first! "

"Beginners should wait their turn!" Shinji retorted, having grown tired of the way Asuka kept treating everything like a game and insisting on turning everything into a competition in the manner of a three-year-old.

Showing her just as little regard as she had shown him, he pointed his gun at the angel and sprayed it with bullets before it could strike first.

But Asuka had kept charging ahead as he had spoken, and gave him little more than a scant "Now I come!" before jumping straight into what used to be his line of fire just seconds ago – It's like she _wanted_ to get herself killed!

You'd think the last fight ought to have taught her a lesson about what happens when you refused help!

Grandiose as ever, she jumped from one ruined building onto the next, a practice which had been significantly more useful in the last fight, and, on this occasion, likely served no other purpose than to show off her high synch rate, sped forward, let out a shrill battle cry and ... sliced the angel clean in half…?

In a single strike?!

Shinji was honestly... not expecting this.

This had been a little too... quick, right?

Could one of these things truly be taken out so easily?

Marvelling at the effortlessness of her victory, Shinji was forced to admit that there must have been... a little more than just hot air behind her tall tales about her long and rigorous training.

"Good work ..." Shinji commented, honestly impressed.

But just because Shinji was not a sore loser, that did not imply that Asuka had to be a graceful winner – There was no way she was going to renounce an opportunity to present the subject of her wholly imaginary rivalry with her best sneer: " Watch and learn, Daddy's boy! That's what a _real_ fight should look like: Elegant and without waste of ammunition!"

 

But to be honest, all the considerable effort that Asuka was putting into her dismissive smirk was going unnoticed, as the Third Child's glance had drifted past the frame of her image on the interface screens all the way to the sad, drooping remainder of the Angel - Why, he wondered, hadn't it liquified yet?

He received his answer when he saw the purple flesh Asuka had sliced in twain beginning to twitch, only for the angel's Ying-Yang symbol-like 'face' to be retracted into its body with a sucking noise, only to be replaced with a new, circular mask in uniform gray, this one bearing no lines and three point-like eyes.

This ... This could not good.

Asuka had just enough time to recognize the look of dread on her fellow pilot's face before the two pieces of Angel swelled only briefly, and then contracted in wrinkles as if they mold themselves to a certain shape before tearing open like some sort of package, leaving two miniature versions of the supposedly deceased Angel to be liberated therefrom, each complete with their own metallic shell, one golden, one silver.

The angels did not take long to rise up and grant Asuka her wish for a "fair" fight fulfilled, though it was now _Misato_ who gripped her walkie-talkie far to tightly as she began to rant about the 'unfair' nature of the fight.

 

The enemy, the face the Children the children were faced might have begged to differ, if hadn't lacked a concept of anything like 'fairness' - His name was Israphael, the Eighth Messenger, the angel of Tears and Music: Below-average firepower, quite slow regeneration, at most mediocre AT Field strenght.

But despite all of this, he was very sure that it was _him_ who would fulfill their divine mission and take this planet for themselves – all because of one small facet of his biology that he believed would more than compensate for his shortcomings in all those other areas: A double core.

As the impetuous Lillim had charged at him, her will driving a perversion reminiscent of the Angels' father, she had overlooked how the messenger had looked in her direction, dignified her a rather unimpressed blink, and made no further attempts to evade her attack.

Israphael had understood her intention to cleave his body in half, from the top all the way to the bottom - and saw no real reason to avoid it.

She had not he inflicted the slightest damage - Not a gram of his body had been destroyed, all of it still connected to a completely undamaged energy core, one in each half.

The seconds of motionlessness that followed its ineffective bifurcation had simply been the fraction of time the angel's consciousness had needed to get used to its new state, the sensation of being in two places at once, of mantaining two wholly separate forms with one and the same AT-field.

It had been a momentary shock, a consequence of it's soul's finite reaction time, ...but nothing more.

It was but a fright which quickly passed and did not alter Israphael's combative prowess, or the certainty of it's victory.

It was time to take on the Lillim.

And those had pretty much shot themselves in the foot when they helped the angel with the twin cores to two unconnected forms – in some ways, this had doubled the number of their enemies, and in others, left it the same, and they had done that in the one exact combination that would be the most unwelcome to them.

Since they had split the angel in two, Shinji and Asuka were no longer outnumbering it.

But as both bodies were being commanded by the same soul with the ease of a man ruling over his own two feet, the two halves of the angel had an unlimitted capacity for the one thing its adversaries were the most lacking in: cooperation.

* * *

 

 "This morning at 10 o'clock, 58 minutes and 15 seconds Evangelion unit 01 was overwhelmed by one half of the target object, hereinafter referred to as Alpha, and sunk about two kilometers from Suruga Bay."

In order to accompany Lt. Ibuki's report, both the projectors in the back corner of the small briefing room were presenting an image of the usually awe-inspiring violet titan surrounded by comparatively tiny salvage ships, it's legs poking up into the air like some pitiful comic book character, 'boasting' of a level of coolness that would have made a wet dog resemble a Terminator by comparison.

But though she was attending the 'debriefing', which better described as a damage report, from the seat next to a rather unhappy-looking Shinji, a sympathetic but somehow amused Kaji and a distinctly un-amused subcommander, Asuka couldn't seem to muster much in terms of scoff – perhaps because she could very well guess which image was to follow next:

Yes, exactly. Another EVA that had been rammed head-first into the ground, leaving only it's feet to protrude from the hole: Her very own.

If one had any further questions as to what had taken place, a mere glance at the clock, or alternatively, the two Children, who sat on their benches with their plugsuits still on and some towels provisionally draped around their shoulders would have been enough to conclude that it had taken quite a while to liberate the two from their rather precarious situation:

“Twenty seconds later, EVA 02 was incapacitated by the beta half in a similar manner. The head of project E's scientific division summarized the results of the operation like this:”

They were then treated to a frank complaint from a recording of Ritsuko's voice:

“...a complete disaster.”

To leave those words unchallenged was... absolutely unacceptable.

Asuka couldn't allow, and much less suffer to hear the possibility being discussed for as much as a second, nor the prospect that she could have failed at the one thing she had been pretty much... _made_ for, after she'd spent all her life training and preparing fr this very moment to arrive.

Immediately, she jumped out of her seat, paying no mind to the towel that slid past the outline of her body to come to a rest on the ground.

Mere split-seconds after the recording ha d stopped, she'd been standing at her full height in a broad posture, and also, in the way of the projector beam, casting a shadow on the likeness of her shame as if to cover it.

“Man! I can't believe this stupid daddy's boy had to go an ruin my big debut!” she ranted, as if she were stating an universally approved fact that was bound to garner a firework of agreement from everybody in the room.

But the bubble containing that mental construct she'd defensively raised for her protection was quite rudely popped when someone actually dared to contradict her – and of all people, it had to be _him,_ that loser, that useless weakling who was only here because o his father's influence...

Back in Germany, she had always been treated like one would expect to be treated as the pride of the European armed forces, the pilot with the highest synch ratio of the all (at least insofar as she was aware.)

She had been the unwavering focus of the third branch, and as such, been spoiled like a princess, been granted a proper commission in the forces as soon as she asked for it, and paraded in front of high-ranking politicians and businessmen from all over Europe, including the chancellor herself, the current leader of the European Union's commission, and even a certain Mr. Lorenz, the reclusive billionaire, who, at least on paper, supposedly owned half of Europe and two thirds of the internet.

Every wish had been read from her lips, every comfort she could want or her quarters, every expensive piece of brand clothing or outlandish leisure time activity had been given to her if she as much as implied being interested in it – Because she was worth it.

She was the elite. One of the very few, very special people on this world who had been desperately sought and needed, and, once found, been trained, educated and molded since she was a small child. Barely past her toddler days, she had been taken from her father and stepmother so her mind could be nourished by the best teachers in the world, and for her body to be steeled from a young age. Every one of her training sessions and every single meal she'd been fed had been prepared for and planned out by qualified scientists.

She was the best in the world, with the highest synch ratio, the only one who didn't get in through nepotism, not because of who she knew or because she was related to so-and-so, but because she was **good.**

Better even than the First Child from headquarters!

Because she was something special, born into this world with an unique purpose.

She alone, and no one else.

So why was this _nobody,_ this pathetic little _brat_ who had just randomly shown up out of nowhere and couldn't stop himself from flinching if you as much as spoke to him in a loud voice jumping up from his seat to block the light much like her, and looking her in the eyes without any shame?

Yes exactly, how did that happen? When the boy arrived here about two months and a week ago, he would never have had the nerve to openly defy a sharp-tongued, dominant person such as Asuka, and would much rather have conceded blame without dispute just to stop her from yelling at him, meanwhile struggling not to burst into tears with every word she said –

But he had changed after his ordeal on the Futagoyama, his fiery second baptism in molten metal. It wasn't like he had suddenly become a confident person, the human heart does not change so rapidly, but, to simply stomach that everything had been _his_ fault, that wouldn't fare well with the lump of anger that he'd been silently harboring for a long time, and now, it was beginning to shout louder and louder, about how none of this was fair and how he couldn't have done anything to possibly deserve all this... and least of al Asuka's accusations!

He'd followed the plan – aim for the center of the target and fire!

Even though he hated fighting more than anything, he'd come along and done everything he was supposed to do. He'd done his part, just as he'd done on the mountain, and back then, that had been enough for everything to work, hadn't it? It was _her_ , that stupid, childish newbie who had to turn everything into a _game_ and _didn't_ do her part!

This was _**not**_ his fault.

There was a time when that very concept would never have crossed his mind, but for once, this was _not_ his fault, at least not all of it – He had done his part.

“What are you talking about?” he retorted, in a manner that was not _really_ sharp, as he probably still secretly feared that he might be confronted with less than apparent reasons as to why it _was_ , in fact, all his fault after all; Though he was now capable of at least _enduring_ conflict to some extent didn't mean that he didn't find it rather uncomfortable and wished it would stop, but he retained a certain firmness because he knew that he couldn't be _all_ wrong: “It all went downhill when _you_ went off on your own, Shikinami!”

The Second Child couldn't believe her ears.

There wasn't even any real anger or impetus in the pathetic wavering insistence of his voice, he couldn't even be bothered to muster any proper assertiveness – or, he didn't consider her worth 'lowering' himself to her level...

He actually had the gall to put the blame on _her?_ That bumbling half-wit? Just because he'd started out with an oh-so-impressive synch rate – that was still far below her and not anywhere near catching up, mind you – and wasn't even any use to him because he was too cowardly to do anything else but to senselessly shoot around from a distance? Or was it because he expected that either the leader of the operation division or allmighty commander Daddykins would get him out of whatever trouble he and his big mouth could get themselves into?

Who did he even think he was?

(Perhaps, that he was a scarily talented ascendant who might actually come to pose a serious threat to her one day if he kept going the way he had? That there was some reality & substance behind the flashes of a somewhat different, surprisingly serious, brave and determined person she'd briefly thought to have glimpsed on the battlefield? That there might be a good reason for the chills that had gone down her spine, and the dark premonition in her gut telling of a warrior's black, black soul dwelling beyond the almost unnatural midnight blue of his eyes? That the stupid, clueless little brat in this equation was, in fact, Asuka herself?

No, this couldn't be. She would be lost with a rival like that. She forced herself to focus on the idiot who presented absolutely no threat, the fearfulnobody who couldn't even muster a serious attempt at avoiding her in the mornings, took her physical heckling without a fight and seemed to lack all capacity to stand up for either himself or what he wanted, a dead ringer for the kind of pathetic person who was perpetually doomed to end up under the wheels of life. She refused to see anything that could be read as kindness, or the wisdom to bend in the wind rather than have it break you, nor anything she'd never had or been forced to pay a grudging respect to. He was nothing but a worm, he _had_ to be. A worm, barely worth the dirt under his fingernails, and given his track record, he might not even have the guts to dispute it if she were to say this to his face. And as for all the doubts she simply couldn't _afford_ to have, Asuka knew when to just swallow them down. )

“You're blaming _me?”_ she retorted brusquely, pointing her irreverent, fearless index finger straight at the chicken heart inside his chest. “I don't have to put up with excuses from the likes of you! You have some nerve for such a lame slowpoke!”

That spineless brat didn't seem to have anything resembling pride! She'd bet anything that he wouldn't even dare to open his-

“That's rich, coming from you! This would all have gone a lot better if you didn't have to turn everything into a competition!”

Well, as it turns out, Shinji Ikari was anything but a coward – he just _thought_ he was one, and sometimes, that slight but important distinction made itself felt.

The Third's child accusation was too close to the truth to be dispelled through reasonable arguments, not that they had ever been the hodheaded pilot's language of choice to begin with: “Just look at yourself! Sunk like the Titanic!”

He was about to respond that she was the one acting like a toddler, but at some point, even Shinji's patience was bound to have reached it's end, leading to him following her lead, pointing at the rather uncool image of her own Evangelion and asserting that she hadn't exactly beat him in terms of elegance.

Only when the report resumed did the two adolescents interrupt their argument to turn their attention towards the screes, which now displayed a particular sigil and a squadron of fighter jets in place of their Evangelions.

“At 11 hours and three minutes, the operation was formally aborted and command was turned over to the UN forces.” Maya's voice narrated – and yes, she was referring to the same conventional military whom NERV usually told to stay out of their business.

Subcommander Fuyutsuki, who'd had the dubious pleasure of kindly requesting their assistance, made no particular effort to hide his disgruntlement: “We've made a laughing stock of ourselves!”

“At 11 hours and five minutes, an N2-mine was dropped on the target.”

The next slide showed snapshots of the explosion and extensive damage reports.

“So we'll have to redraw the maps once again.” Fuyutsuki commented acerbically. He couldn't believe his eyes – any moment now, the kids might start pulling each other's hairs.

Did they have any concept of the changed landscapes, uprooted trees, the burnt meadows?

And all that because of a dispute between children...

Second Impact almost seemed justified by comparision. It pained his heart to see which trivialities sufficed to justify carving up the face of the Earth these days, as if mankind had just collectively thrown its arms up and decided than one scar more or less would hardly make a difference anymore.

But what could he offer but lamentation?

Despite all he had to admit that the marring of the world had not exactly moved him to tears; Not when he had been the one giving the order.

Such was the fate of those who fearfully clung to their lives – If Ikari were here, he likely wouldn't have considered those few layers of sediment remotely worth mentioning, and contented himself with bringing up significantly worse alternatives if anyone had felt inclined to object.

Fuyutsuki doubted that he'd ever see the man with a head full of gray – If a bullet didn't get him first, they would undoubtedly be washed away by third impact, a fate they would both welcome with open arms when the shadowed half of this Earth was once again made indistinguishable from the dark night it inhabited.

And on top of all that, he had to deal with bickering children.

It was all rather frustrating and disheartening.

The next slide in the presentation showed the sky clearing up over the angel's torched surroundings. Parts of an evacuated city that had been painstakingly reconstructed, molten down to its skeleton-like steel pillars. Oh the humanity!

And these two children were talking about it like it was a children's game... as one would expect of children.

Once again, reality sunk in painfully, about Ikari's little child soldiers and the certainty that there simply was no better way.

How grotesque it all was, how repulsing, from all the loud noises to the senseless destruction, up to and including the way the boy's hair parted over his forehead, and how it reminded him of Yui. But that fact, at least, was not his to complain about.

The operation's undignified resume continued: “The blast incinerated roughly 28% of the target's mass.”

“They destroyed it?” asked Asuka, unintentionally naive – Shinji already suspected that this was highly unlikely, especially since the angel looked at most somewhat melted on the top, the way an action figure made of rubber or plastic would be. Indeed, the disgraced subcommander was forced to correct her: “They _stopped_ it.”

Even his displeasure was only half-heartedly present in his final summation, having reached a point where it was no longer worth even getting worked up about: “The next attack is only a matter of time...”

He was rather weighed down by the sheer senselessness of it all.

Only Kaji seemed capable of seeing anything positive in this whole Unpleasantness, and smiled at his thoroughly peeved superior: “At least this gives us some time to think of a better plan.”

This didn't really console him, but at least it seemed to have convinced him that it might be worth a try to talk to the youngsters:

Overshadowing their silhouettes with his own, he turned a strict gaze toward the children's questioning faces.

“Listen you two. What do you think your job is?”

“Well, to pilot the EVAs of course!” Asuka replied, as if at the touch of a button. What was even the point of that stupid question?

As it happens, its purpose was to alert the young lady of a fundamental misunderstanding:

“Wrong. Your job is _to defeat the angels_.” Fuyutsuki clarified.

“Nerv exists to save humanity, not to present it with some grotesque farce!”

Fittingly, the projector was displaying images of the rather inelegant recovery operation, a highlight being the sight of EVA 01 with an oversized tube float – but though it made for a less hilarious sight, it was EVA 02's retrieval that had taken the longest, a fact one would do well not to mention in front of its temperamental pilot.

“It's time that you two learn to work together!” their superior admonished.  
And, indeed: Eureka! For once, the two Children were in total agreement, even replying in unison:

“How am I supposed to work together with someone _like that?”_

Fuyutsuki gave it up.

After one last grumling comment that this had been enough, he escaped to freedom via one of the internal lifts. Where was Ikari when you needed him?

 

As soon as the subcommander had left , the lights turned back on, leaving Asuka to sink back onto her chair with an annoyed sigh.

“Menno!” she complained, as if she had been made to deal with hours' worth of bureaucratic errands over a trivial matter. “Why does everybody here have to make such a fuss about every little thing?”

“Well...” Kaji replied in an informal tone that spoke more of wisdom than nonchalance, attempting to answer her questions in a diplomatic manner: “As it happens, adults really don't like it when you embarrass them.”

Shinji's question was a little more modest: “...by the way, where is Misato?”

“Clearing up the aftermath. She was supposed to be in charge of the operation, and the person in charge exists to take responsibility...” 

* * *

 

Misato didn't even want to look at what once, in better days, had used to be her desk. Technically, it still _was_ her desk, but she couldn't see very much of it, given that it was buried under ridiculously large piles of paper, whose sheer volume made her feel like she'd stumbled into some exaggerated comic book punchline. Paper, paper everywhere!

Thick envelopes, thin envelopes, white, brown, rectangular, sheet-sized, petite, a veritable zoo of complaint letters.

And that wasn't even all of them – Ritsuko had just entered with a few small, white envelopes in her hand which were probably yet more complaints.

Before she'd even gotten an opportunity to see the correspondence, Misato had already been forced to give multiple explanations, some with and some without a rather frosty-looking Fuyutsuki glaring at her.

“Here are the damage reports and the complaints from the state department...” the Blonde began, leading her co-worker on a little tour of the paper-Himalaya before her. “Over there are the letters from the UN and this is a formal complaint from the PR department.” she elucidated, handing her co-worker the last few letters. “Have fun reading all this.”

Misato sighed. “I don't have to, I already know what's written in all of them: 'Defeat the angels, but not in our backyard.' I can deal with this once we've defeated the angel.”

Refusing to spare the paper mountain more than the most necessary of glances, Misato walked past it and sat down with interlocking hands. In her mind, she was already contemplating how in the world they were supposed to deal with this latest ridiculous enemy – if She didn't have to deal with all this annoying paperwork, they might already be sitting at the planning table...

As far as the EVAs were concerned, their embarrassing positions had been the worst of the defeat – there had not been any significant damage. The real problems, of which there were two, or perhaps rather four, were the angel's double core and the bickering pilots – On their own, either of the issues would have been surmountable with some creativity, but together they made for a rather unfortunate combination...

Leave it to her good old friend and eternal pessimist to remind her of a third, or perhaps fifth problem: “The Subcommander is very angry. If you humiliate him again, you'll doubtlessly be transferred...”

“...Probably.” Misato admitted. In all the time she'd worked under Fuyutsuki, she didn't think she'd ever seen him lose his temper before. He tended to be fairly calm – Then again, having lead the operation herself, she knew full well that those two kids had a rare talent for driving people up the walls.

“It was fortunate that Commander Ikari isn't here...” Usually, she would be wondering what kind of conspiracies he might be hatching on his latest business trip to Europe, given that he was supposed to meet with the committee themselves, or complain that he was never here when you needed him, but as of now, she wouldn't mind at all if he were to take his sweet, sweet time.

“Yep.” Ritsuko commented with a surprisingly nonchalant smile, leaning over the paperwork to see her old friend. “If he'd been here, he'd have straight up fired you before you even saw these.”

“Well then, I'm hoping that you came here with some brilliant idea that will save my job?”

“Indeed.”

Ritsuko pulled out a data stick.

Misato joyously rose from her seat, placed her ellbown on the paper mountains to better see Ritsuko and glowed at her with sheer grattitude. “As expected by the brilliant Dr. Akagi! Oh thank you, it's so great to have a loyal best friend like you!”

“That's flattering, but I'm not the one you should be grateful to.” Though Misato was already about to snatch the data stick out of the Blonde's hands like a non-swimmer reaching for a life-saver, Ritsuko playfully snatched it right out of her grasp only to turn it around as reveal the adhesive label on the other side, on which one could find a sketch of a pink, stylized head and some writing announcing that this data stick was 'For my Darling'.

“This was all Ryo-chan's idea. He says the thought came to him when he watched the Children arguing...”

“It's from Kaji-kun?”

What turn of events.

Her previous reactions to anything even remotely related to the man might have led one to suspect that she'd be liable to brutally smash the poor, innocent data stick into the next available wall, but instead, there was even something like a smile spilling across Misato's lips, probably the safest sign that her supposed oath to never touch anything that had been in the man's hands wasn't what it used to be.

Only distantly did she consider the question what sort of cheap and shallow person one would have to be to denounce and hate only when it was convenient.

The desperately needed rescuing of humanity was always a good pretext to put such considerations out of her mind and allow herself to wonder with some degree of anticipation what the sight of the bickering pilots may have inspired him to do.

That, for once, was a question whose corresponding answer was bound to be much lighter fare than the very different one no one had yet dared to pose – for as embarrassing and inacceptable as today's incident had been, they should all have known to expect something like this sooner or later – as much as they tried to do the work necessary to their survival regardless of that, the pilots they were using were children, in the most turbulent, unpredictable of ages. Of course they were liable to get into childish fights or lose sight of what was truly important. That was precisely why 14 year olds shouldn't be soldiers, among many other reasons.

Could they really expect them to do much better than they did? If their superiors could afford to turn up their noses and complain,

In the end it wasn't fair to demand a standard of maturity from them that even adults couldn't always muster – but because humanity's very survival depended on it, she had to choice but to ask, demand, even enforce that standard.

Of course, Misato always did her best to do this is a... not necessarily “careful” but at least “teacher-like” manner so the children wouldn't feel like soldiers, but... that didn't change that this was _exactly_ what they were.

 

* * *

As he was heading home later that day, it appeared before him again, a bright red grafiti sprayed across a somewhat neglected wooden fence: “The world is wrong”.

It was neither the first nor the second time that Shinji had unexpectedly stumbled across these words when he least expected them, always jolting his memory before he could fully put them out of his mind.

They were everywhere, always scattered by the wayside of his paths, as if someone had exactly predicted it... which was painfully close to something that, ludicrous as it was, actually had a chance of becoming the truth. That girl, Yui... She had spoken of things that were yet to come.

“ _The home you built for yourself, your friends, the people you love... none of it will last. Indeed... there might come a day on which you feel like your world is coming apart all around you, without you being able to do anything about it.”_

The mere afterglow of her words was enough to send chills down his spine.

He didn't want to see this. He didn't want to hear this. If he was bound to fail... then why did she have to tell that to him? Why couldn't she let him enjoy the 'fake' world for as long as it would last? Why couldn't she leave him whatever transient flicker of peace was still left for him? Why couldn't she leave him the few joys he'd fought hard to claim over the last two months? Why did she have to tell him, and why pick him of all people to bear that knowledge, why burden him with awareness of things that he couldn't change anyway?

Why did she have to haunt him with those words, and who was she even?

And if she had spoken the truth, did it not mean that he was bound to fail?

Sure, they had lost today's battle and he'd be the first to admit that his capacity was limited, but... Misato was sure to think of something, wasn't she? So far, she'd _always_ produced a plan sooner or later.

Shinji forced himself to get moving and ran off, away fro the writing on the wall and the things he should have no way of knowing and these events that made no sense. He wanted nothing to do with it – this... life with Evangelions everything was bad enough, but he could more or less wrap his head around it. These words, however, and the way they seemed to be omnipresent like a prophecy, these dreams and all this talk about the future or the absence thereof...

All of that was way out of his league.

Time to get home, back to where familiar sights, sounds and smells were waiting to occupy his straying mind. He wouldn't even mind having Misato ramble at him and make her usual attempts to enthuse him about her exaggerated cheeriness, but she would most likely still be at NERV HQ cleaning up the aftermath of today's disastrous battle.

He had at the very least tried to follow her plan, but that was no good if he was the only one doing so.

Sighing for a very long list of diverse reasons, Shinji pressed the required button to 'order' the elevator that would escort him all the way to Misato's appartment. Distracted by his brooding, he'd almost taken the stairs, but as much as that may have looked like the healthier alternative at first glance, the simple circumstance that the Katsuragi resdence happened to be on the eleventh floor dissuaded him from opting for that path all too often when his attention wasn't compromised by the many worries inside his head.

That same inattentiveness was probably why he had failed to take much notice of the U-haul truck that had been driving in the opposite direction as he had been approaching the building which hauled his most recent domicile – a sign that might perhaps prepared him for the unpleasant surprise that awaited him in his own home.

“I'm back... not that anyone's here...” he absentmindedly mumbled to himself as he entered the supposedly empty apartment, perhaps in part to assure himself of his tangible surroundings in the here and now, though mostly out of simple habit.

It was probably that same habitual familiarity with this place, in addition to his remaining inner consternation which kept him from looking too closely at the walls and floor of the hallway as he traversed it, leading him to walk straight past the cardboard boxes, suitcases and bags with nary a clue, no matter how conspicuous they should have been, just from the sheer amount of space they took up, the various 'Deutsche Post' insignias and the neat, cursive handwriting that declared each and every one of them to be the property of 'S.A.L.', not to mention the occasional bits of women's underwear poking out.

He paid the price for his absent-mindedness when the foreboding surprise ended up hitting him with all the dignity a sudden unintentional cold shower once he opened the door to what, just this morning, had still been his quiet and comfortable room, his only, silent refuge from this very crazy world that increasingly resembled a Dalí painting, leaving him to stare in petrified horror at what revealed itself when he slid the door to the side.

For one thing, there was little left behind that door that would have exuded any sense of cozy calmness – Everything was cluttered with unprecedented multitudes of _stuff._

Tables, chairs, bags, suitcases... and cardboard boxes, lots of cardboard boxes, all the way up to the ceiling he often liked to stare at. Mountains, nay, archipelagos of boxes!

What had once been Shinji's room was now filled to the brim with a somewhat blocky cardboard facsimile of the Himalayas.

Some of the boxes were even opened and partially unpacked.

“W-What in the world....” Shinji stammered, feeling understandably flabbergasted.

“What happened to my room?”

Shinji didn't even have the time to look for an explanation before some harsh words and their implications provided him one to which none at all would have been preferable: “Keep your hands off my stuff!”

Whenever he thought that his life had become as bizarre and surreal as it ought to be physically possible, his cruel, cruel fate would have thought up yet another means of making him question his feeble sanity even further:

Refusing to believe his ears he turned about to face the source of these fearsome sounds, causing his attention to be caught by a pair of long, slender, flawless legs.

Really flawless, rather desirable, a veritable joy for a hormone-ridden teenager such as himself – not that he'd never seen a pair of uncovered feminine legs before, put these were truly outstanding specimens, not too thin, not too thick, perfectly shaven, _exactly right_ much like the sort one would expect to see printed in certain questionable magazines.

But alas, his experience dictated that legs usually came with a head attached, and the one belonging to this pair sported long, red hair.

Not that this would have been a problem in itself, but all the afore mentioned body parts happened to belong to one Captain Shikinami.

The arrogant European stood suddenly in the hallway of his once relatively safe apartment, her posture confident, casual and upright, calmly finishing a bottle of lemonade as if she owned the place.

And that was precisely what she looked like, barefoot, with her hair down, wearing little more than a scant, silky white nightgown with red lace decorations and a big red bow on the front, which, much like the questionable length of the garment, seemed like an invitation to 'unwrap' her.

Everything about her sent the unmistakeable message that she was here to stay and that she lacked even the slightest doubt or bashfulness about this.

“What's going on here?” The Third Child managed, helplessly. “S-Shikinami? What are you doing here of all places?”

Taking her sweet time to properly enjoy her nice cool beverage, the Second Child took a while to even bother with a reply, which ended up consisting of her turning toward the rather confused teen with a deep, dismissive sigh.

“Are you an idiot?” She asked, mildly annoyed, even though she already knew the answer.

“Heh?!”

“The real question is, what are _you_ still doing here.”

Confidently walking toward, or rather, straight past him to the door of her freshly-claimed brand new room, she didn't spare the Third Child as much as a glance, though she was quite deliberate about invading his personal space with his elbow as she generously supplied a simple gesture to elucidate what his likely rather meager intelligence quotient didn't allow him to comprehend, : “Isn't it obvious?” she declared, unbothered by the way he fearfully flinched away. “You obviously blew it, so you shouldn't be surprised.”

“... what?”

“You're being replaced by the superior model! Misato will be living with _me_ from now on.” she declared with a mocking sweetness. “Idiots like you are now obsolete! A good choice, when you consider who's got the superior piloting skills. Even though I would have much preferred to move in with Kaji-san~” she gushed, either wholly ignoring the distinctly lost expression in the Third Child's face, or outright relishing it.

“But honestly, why do Japanese homes have such tiny rooms? I could barely fit _half_ of my stuff in here!”she complained without paying any heed to her fellow polit, who was by then beginning to realize that none of his _own_ belongings remained anywhere in the room.

Back when he'd attempted to run from here, his belongings had still all fit into a single backpack, but thanks to the efforts of Misato, Touji and Kensuke, they acould fill a couple of cardboard boxes by now, and every single item had been gathered up and heartlessly deposited in the next best corner: His alarm clock, his umbrella, his clothes, many of which he had only bought very recently, his books and astronomy magazines, even his NERV-mug and the heart-shaped doorsign Misato had bought for him, complete with it's “Shin-chan's Room.”-tag. Sure, he'd found it a bit embarrassing when his guardian had first bought it, but by now, he had to admit that it had seriously grown on him.

 

Next to the sheer volume of Asuka's belongings, everything he owned or, had _archived_ seemed rather puny and insignificant – Come to think of it, he had only been drafted as a substitute pilot to begin with. Were they actually going to send him away?

If that was the case, Asuka did not seem remotely sympathetic – she just kept ranting about everything in her line of sight like it was the most natural thing in the world. “...and while we're at it, don't you Japanese have any sense of personal space? I mean, paper doors that just slide open? How can you stand to live in a room that you can't even lock? Unbelievable!”

“That is because here in Japan, we value politeness and a sense of community. Hello you two!”

By startling them with her sudden arrival, their guardian actually succeeded in capturing both their full attention for what had to be the first time today.

“M-Misato-san!” Shinji reacted, half in greeting yet slightly accusing but mostly quite blindsided.

“You're annoying!”, she proceeded to diss the timid boy. “Why don't you just take your garbage and leave?”

Misato did not seem all too concerned about her ward's uncooperative behavior, for even this had been accounted by dear ol' Kaji's genius plot, and he'd had months of experience in dealing with Asuka's whimsical nature.

Instead of rehearsing Fuyutsuki's earlier lectures, she simply smiled.

“Actually, Shin-chan will continue living here.”

 

'Shin-chan' might have been much more delighted about these news if Asuka didn't chose to vent her frustration by means of a sonorous **“WHAAT?!”** shouted in immediate proximity to his eardrums, though for once, he actually sympathized with her frustration.

* * *

 

 “Our new plan to defeat the angel relies on a joint attach by Evangelion Units One and Two.”

“WHAAT?!” Asuka bewailed anew, annoyedly slapping her hands onto the table to support herself while leaning forward.

On Misato's end, the table was occupied by several report folders and sensor feed printouts and garnished with a can of beer. For reasons of fairness, the two children sitting across her had each been provided with a can of apple juice, green apple for Shinji, red apple for Asuka.

“Isn't it enough that this dimwitted daddy's boy got in my way _once_? Believe me, it will be much easier if I do it alone!”

“I'm afraid that won't be possible. This is not the sort of enemy that a regular one-on-one combat approach will work against...”

“Oh yes it will!” Asuka protested furiously. Were they seriously going to sic a babysitter on her just because she had lost one single time, and even then only because of that stupid daddy's boy getting on her nerves? She would absolutely not stand for that. “I'm perfectly capable of saving mankind all on my own, thank you very much! Or are you telling me I'm not good enough?”

“Not at all.” Misato clarified firmly, narrowing her eyes into a far more serious expression. “It's just that we are going to need all the skill we can get to persevere through the adversities of this battle. As it would appear, the only way to destroy this particular angel is to destroy both of its cores with a perfectly simultaneous assault. The attack needs to be absolutely synchronous, which means that your timing and cooperation must be nothing short of perfect. In order to prepare for that, you two will be living together from now on.”

“WAAAT?” the two pilots bemoaned in unison, making it very clear that they'd rather keep the greatest possible distance from each other.

Having to work with the other was bad enough, as was having to deal with them every day at school, but to actually _share a home_ with them was a whole different ballgame.

While Shinji just instantaneously melted into a pitiful blob of unhappiness, Asuka wasn't shy about putting her disdain into words: “What is that supposed to mean? You expect me to stay here _the whole time_ until the angel is defeated?”

“Of course not.” Misato replied calmly. “As fellow EVA pilots, you will inevitably have to work together many more times, even in matters of life or death. Besides, both of you are somewhat lacking in communication skills. So, in order to boost your teamwork skills, you two will live under the same roof and eat at the same table.”

“Impossible! Why doesn't the First have to participate in this nonsense? She's an EVA pilot, too, isn't she? Or is the commander's little favorite getting some more preferential treatment here?”

“Well, exactly! Why doesn't she have to participate? Unlike you, she didn't seem to need any special training to cooperate with Shin-chan. Her teamwork is just fine. It's too bad that EVA 00 is still being repaired... I thought you had seen all the recordings?”

Asuka was just about to explode. “This all sounds like pointless psycho-babble to me. I don't see how being stuck with Daddy's boy here will get me any closer to defeating the angel!”

“You're right. Merely living in the same house will not be enough to pull of a perfectly synchronous attack. That's why you are going to prepare for the battle by doing _everything_ together. Eating, training, sleeping, _everything_!”

“WAAAS?” The reactions that this plan had been eliciting from the children had proven rather amusing so far, and, as such, helped Misato to retain her optimism despite their protests.

Shinji had turned bright red in the face and seemed to be shuddering frantically, as if to purge his skull of some mental image he found deeply shameful, whereas Asuka had resorted to leaning far across the table to ascertain that her superior could get a good look at every detail of her supremely disgusted facial expression.

“You can't be serious about this!” she insisted. “Everybody knows that girls and boys should sleep apart over the age of seven!”

“The angel is regenerating as we speak. We have no time to waste. Our target is projected to resume its attack in approximately six days. By then, your synchronization has to be effortless.“ Misato stated, somberly reminding the children of the stakes.

“That is completely impossible! Especially in so little time...” Asuka whined, slumping back onto her seat with an emphatic pout on her features.

But Misato had never been all too daunted by the bad bad 'i'-word: “Then we have to _make_ it possible. The attack plan is choreographed to match up with this melody.” she explained, pulling out an old cassette.

'Well, isn't this great...' Shinji though to himself. For his comfort, this sounded far too much like _dancing-_ And he'd never been any good at that.

“For the next six days, you will study and memorize the plan in its entirety, and learn to work together. That's an _order_.”

“You _can't_ give me any orders. I'm a Captain, just like you.”

“You're dissapointing me a little there, Asuka. I thought you of all people would know that our ranking system works a little different than the one you have in the European forces. By your standards, I'd be roughly equivalent to a... Colonel I think. Besides, as NERV personnel, I have the authority to circumvent the chain of command of any individual nation or alliance of nations. Remember our little adventure with the American navy admiral?”

Asuka stared blankly into the air, aghast at the dawning realization. “Whoha... whah...?!”

“An order is an order.” Misato repeated with a smile that was only slightly forced.

With a sigh, Shinji turned to the girl sitting next to him. To be honest, he could barely stand her, but since the angels needed defeating, there was really nothing he could do, and since she seemed to have turned to face him as well, Shinji had some hope that just perhaps, his fellow pilot might be beginning to grasp the gravity of the situation.

Alas, all such misconceptions were crushed when she turned away with a markedly huffish “Hmpf!”, slamming her hands onto the table and using them to support herself as she got to her feet, leaving behind one lonely can of juice.

“...Asuka...?!”

“I'm going for a shower!” she declared, sharply. “I'm allowed to do at least that by myself, aren't I?”

And thus, she marched off.

Since his own was already finished, Shinji took pity on her remaining juice. It would be a shame to waste it, and besides, he was feeling vaguely sorry for it.

“Don't worry, Shin-chan~ Everything will be fine!”

The Third Child couldn't say whether his guardian's words decreased or _in_ creased his worries.

“And, by the way, doesn't that count as an indirect kiss?”

“G-Gah!” It probably hardly needed mentioning that Shinji narrowly managed not to choke on his drink after a protracted struggle.

At least the one responsible didn't remain seated nonchalantly but for once actually moved to assist him by affectionately patting his back, though not before she'd spent a few moments giggling with great amusement.

“You know, I think you might be able to win her heart by charming her with a homecooked meal. You know what they say about 'right through the stomach'.“

Since Shinji was of the definite opinion that he'd suffered enough for today, he decided to keep any quips regarding the situation or Misato's own 'cooking skills' to himself and simply followed her request.

A nice, quiet and constructive activity like cooking might be exactly what he needed right now. He'd long since accepted that he was fated to be stuck with the only apron owned by the Katsuragi household, and, around the end of last week, had come to the conclusion that it might be a rather expedient venture to learn the art of fine cuisine – At least, if he didn't plan to live on nothing but Misato's bungled instant food, the nearest fast food delivery services and the crap from the school cafeteria for the forseeable future. At first, he hadn't complained, especially since he had hugely boosted the level of available instant dishes simply by selecting, purchasing and preparing them himself, but by now he was beginning to think that this wouldn't be good as a permanent solution, not even for Misato.

And in the end, she had a lot of responsibilities and often worked very hard (if rarely in her own household) and given that she had taken him in and everything, it couldn't be wrong to do something nice for her once in a while. Making himself useful made his presence at her residence feel like less of an awkward imposition, but mostly, he'd finally accepted that to ask his guardian for food that remotely looked like it would pass a test with a Geiger counter was simply futile.

So, the force of circumstance had forced him to acquire a beginner's cookbook, put on the afore mentioned light blue apron and start preparing dinner – now, surprisingly, for three persons.

As a beginner, he wanted to start with something simple, like... - he thumbed through his brand new copy of 'Japanese Cuisine for Dummies' - ...yes, how about fried noodles?

Good thing they sold those noodles in huge packages, so he wouldn't have to worry about having enough to accomodate Asuka.

Beginning to process the fact that he might have to get used to the insane redhead's permanent presence, Shinji thanked the heavens for this nice opportunity to work in the kitchen without being immediately derided as a softie.

That said, it seemed inevitable that he couldn't avoid that fate forever. Sometimes he just coudn't help the feeling that someone up there really didn't like him.

Perhaps, he might be able to reduce the amount of punishment he would inevitably receive by also acquiring 'European Cuisine for Dummies'.

One way or another, at least Misato might appreciate to eat something that had been heated by the stove rather than the microwave for a change, given that she'd already begun to empty a few cans of beer in anticipation and proceeded to arrange them into a funny little pyramid, but since birds weren't exactly known to like noodles, Shinji considered stocking PenPen's food bowl with an interesting-lookin can of tuna he'd spotted on his last trip to the grocery store.

Speaking of PenPen, where was he, anyway?

“AAAAAHHH! There is some weird animal in bathroom!”

Okay, that particular question was answered then.

Since the situation required him and Asuka to bury their hatchets sooner or later, Shinji chose this moment to take the first step and helpfully supply an explanation as a gesture of goodwill: “It's called a 'Penguin'. His name is PenPen.”

But just as he'd turned around with a smile to familiarize his new flatmate with their feathered companion, he realized his mistake with frightening clarity – though actually, the mistake was on Shikinami's side, not that he'd fall prey to the hypocritical act of faulting her for the very same oversight that had happened to him when he'd found himself in a very similar situation two months and one week ago.

To avoid beating around the bush any further, well... The Second Child was... well, a poetic and thematically fitting way to say it might be that she was wearing not her plugsuit but her birthday-suit for a change.

No, not the kind involving a party hat or a cardboard crown, _nothing at all_.

After the time he'd accidentally flashed Misato in a similar manner, numerous encounters with her breast and two comparable incidents involving Ayanami, he was beginning to wonder if some angry wizard had cursed him with an irresistible magnetic attraction for embarrassing mishaps.

That question was now decisively answered with a definitive “Yes”.

Before Asuka even realized why, Shinji's complexion had gone through an interesting spectrum of colorations ranging from a lovely pink to an eye-catching tomato-red, a charming red-wine ruby to a saturated dark violet, while it's owner desperately struggled to keep certain bodily functions under control before she noticed the effects the goodies generously shaken by her bold, demonstrative body languages were having on him and possibly started to mock him over certain measurements even though the whole fiasco had been her fault to begin with.

While giving him a weird look, probably wondering what his problem was, she shifted her weight from one leg to the other, causing a plethora of little follow-up motions as throughout her flawless body. She stood in her usual, deliberately provocative manner with her hands on her hips, unwittingly presenting him the full frontal view, absolutely _everything_ from the glossy, exotically colored hair cascading past her shoulders to the uncovered youthful mounds on her chest and the pigmented spots at their centers, which, free of all restraints or supports jiggled slightly with every ever so slight motion, decorated with tiny glittering droplets of sweat or water, down to the site of some tiny red stubble which she was probably in the process of shaving off, framing her secret place in a flame-light pattern.

Oh god, the sight alone was-

_Oh no._

No further need to worry about his _own_ reactions, the paralyzing fear of what _she_ might do more than took care of that once it finally occurred to her to wonder just what he was staring at and looked down at herself and finally noticed that she had forgotten to grab a towel when she had left the bathroom in a panic.

The last thing he saw was how her lovely body expressed a progression from shock, to shame, to anger in the language of the old masters without the need for something as deceptive as words, and then, darkness.

It was then that he had his first encounter with Chucksuka Shikinorris' deadly roundhouse kick. Granted, he'd witnessed this divine messenger of pain and suffering once before on this earth, when some of her unfortunate suitors had the pleasure to receive it, but the hellish agony efficiently delivered by the kiss of her feet was worse than anything his clumsy imagination could envision, and more horrifying than words could describe – Though it was Shinji's opinion that the closest approximation could be archived by the unassuming little sound known as 'Ouch.'

The next thing he remembered was a meeting between his much-maltreated body and the lovely stone tiles lining the floor of Misato's kitchen, which, though it was probably redundant to mention, was not a pleasant experience.

But what mercy could he expect from a girl who had practically _greeted_ him with a dose of physical punishment?

Ohh boy.

Life as a softie was rather hard for something that was referred to as _soft_ -ie.

“What a pervert!” Asuka declared, adding a flurry of insults to injury as she provisionally covered herself with her hands and made her way to the bath to continue her shower. “Idiot! Lecher! Not just a loser, but a peeping tom! You're the worst! I can't believe it!”

So much for working together. By the current state of things, the next battle was likely to conclude with her knocking out Shinji rather than the angel, which meant that things weren't looking all too rosy for the fate of humanity.

 

Curiously, Misato did not seem the slightest bit discouraged by the filmworthy example of domestic violence that had just unfolded before her eyes.

“Look, PenPen!” the inebriated NERV employeed commented to her faithful pet, passing him a can of beer she had previously 'enchanced' with a drinking straw. “They're already being brutally honest with each other! Things are going nicely~”

Given the circumstances, the bird choose to comment this with an approving “Waaaaak!”

* * *

 

When Misato decided somewhat later that it was now Sleepy Time, she barely managed to land on her bed – To cover herself with a blanket or take off the shorts whose button she'd undone at some point, or to even put away the bottle she had emptied just before had been distinctly beyond her, in fact, she had not even manage to place her beer-addled head onto the er pillow rather than the messy stretch of floor right behind it.

Like seemingly all tasks of dubious pleasure, the duty of maneuvering his half-naked, thoroughly plastered guardian to her room had fallen to Shinji, his face still bearing Asuka's bright red footprint at the time.

She had reeked of beer and the numerous half-eaten snacks and empty alcohol bottles and cans strewn around her bed reminded him candidly that this was neither the first nor the last time.

But it was the first time he noticed a wide, conspicuous scar on her partially exposed chest, the only imperfection marring the older woman's body ( - well, aside from her beer-induced halitosis.)

He wondered where she could have gotten it – Even though he'd been living at Misato's place for over two months now, there was a lot he still didn't know about her. Like her history with Kaji, or her past with Asuka.

PenPen had seemingly taken an optimistic view to the Situation and decided to take advantage of it by using his owner's shirt as shelter for the right, with the result that they were now both snoring to themselves with the unison that Shinji and Asuka so sorely lacked, but the Third Child couldn't help but to find the sight of her in such a state tremendously depressing.

There was something... broken to it, a feeling he really didn't like, or a sense that there was nothing he could do for her and very little he knew of her.

One way or another, today had been a thoroughly awful day, the only consolation being that it was almost over.

Exhausted, the made his way to the provisional joint sleeping area which Misato had set up in the living room for himself and Asuka, taking a moment to straighten out the sheets since his drunken superior had been even sloppier than usual, and then hastily hid away under the blankets in the hope that he would be, or at the very least, _look_ asleep by the time Asuka showed up.

The last thing he needed today was another confrontation, regardless of what cowardice she might accuse him of for that sentiment.

Simply put, he was completely and thoroughly exhausted...

...wait, what was that?

Wasn't there something just now, over there... out on the balcony?

With slightly narrowed eyes, Shinji sent a probing glance into the nondescript darkness.

Nope. That must have been a figment of his imagination, probably brought about by his urgent need for a good night's sleep.

Shinji was too tired to even listen to music or spend his usual few moments brooding over life's complicated questions and the reasons for his presence in this down, or even to bemoan his meagre odds of surviving this particular training session.

 

All he craved was a soft, quiet place.

* * *

 

Pulled away from the balcony door in a flash, the woman with the long, blue hair found herself pressed to the wall, held in the iron grip of a dark-haired girl in a thick, white rubber suit.

'Yui Ichijo', as revealed by the small, triangular plaque on her strange futuristic garment.

The being known as Leatha had already been expecting her and, despite her precarious situation, showed no significant reaction other than a thin smile.

And really, why should she have cared? She could have ripped this cumbersome girl apart without moving a single muscle.

Which was, perhaps, why there was very little nonchalance to be found on Yui's tender face – instead, she wore the dead-serious expression of a stoic soldier.

Compared with Leatha, she might have had the physique of a frail child, but for some reason, the escaped experiment did not seem to posses the physical strength to escape the girl's grasp without use of her powers – There was only so much she could do to stop the decay of that ridiculous parody of a living human body.

“What are you doing here?!” Yui demanded to know.

It was hard to believe that the slender girl had been the source of that hard, commanding tone.

“Well...” Yui heard, both whispered next to her face and thundering inside her skull. “At the moment, I am not capable of pursuing one of my goals, so I decided to pursue another.”

“Makes sense.” Yui commented, as steely as her opponent seemed nonchalant. “But I cannot let you.”

“Let me?”

Leatha's laugh filled Yui's mind. Her lips moved, but no sound escaped – all of the ghastly sound was happening exclusively in Yui's innermost. The first time she'd experienced that abominable sound, she had almost forgotten her own existence for a moment, because even the littlest parts in the back of her consciousness that stereotypically housed the residual self-awareness in times of panic or denial had been incapacitatingly busy experiencing fear, leaving her without even the ability to process or react to that same fear by means of screaming or running away – All of her consciousness had practically _become_ fear, with no part of it left over to house a reaction.

But by now, she had grown so used to that sound, heard it so many countless times, that she could now suffer it without even batting an eyelash.

“I don't think you're in any position to 'let' or 'not let' me do anything.” Leatha clarified. “All it takes is one thought to move one blood vessel in your head by one millimeter, and you're finished. Don't you realize that I could destroy you any moment I wanted?”

“Of course.” Yui aknowledged. “You can destroy me any time you want. But not here.”

Shifting her weight so that her things were solidly touching the body pinned down beneath her, the girl let go of her opponent and pressed the orange buttons on both sides of her suit, and in an instant, both feminine figures disappeared into a flash of light, leaving behind no dust, no ash, nor even a blackened stain or anything else that could have constituted a trace.

 

Even the light that was the only undeniable evidence of their presence dissipated without anyone being there to see it.

* * *

So here she was, in a foreign country halfway across the world, where absolutely nothing or no one was familiar to her, separated from everything she'd ever known and stuck with a woman whom she only knew on a highly superficial level and couldn't even stand, surrounded by walls, furniture, and a boy who was little more than a perfect stranger and would be free to do just about anything to her if he should have to luck to wake up before her in the morning, free to find her cowering under her blanket, pathetically curled into a ball and desperately clutching her little doll.

She could spin it however she wanted, push the blame wherever she could stuff it and present an ever-so flawless mirage of a strong and independent starlet, until she felt nauseated by her own hypocrisy –

None of that would change that she had failed today.

In the daylight, she might have been capable of believing her own self-aggrandizing redderrick, but here, in the light- and soundless darkness, she had no choice but to admit what she should have understood when the enemy had rammed herself and her evangelion head-first into the dirt, right where they belonged.

“There is _no way_ I could have beat it alone...”

 

* * *

If one had thought that the concrete desert at the outskirts of Tokyo-3 was the most complete picture of desolation, one would have clearly failed to anticipate the day the city board would begin to rid itself of the identical concrete buildings, demolishing rows of them at a time.

Even in their prime, the stark grey concrete blocks had been a dismal sight. They had been built in the years following Second Impact for the purpose of accommodating some of the many, many people who had lost their homes in the catastrophe – Colors, space, light and individual distinctions had been a luxury that the people didn't even think of until housing had become sufficiently available for there to be choices.

Once, one would have found entire families crammed into the tiny bedsits, their laundry hanging out of a few wires next to the windowsills, but now that they were no longer needed, the relics of the reconstruction had been deserted and fallen into disrepair – thus, the powers that be had recently decided to rid themselves of their unsightly presence.

Where you would once have found angular, ordered evidence of civilization, there were now extensive piles of rubble and asphalt, areas the size of football fields where dredges and wrecking balls were the only upright structures.

For the most part, the noise they counted was as distant as the chirping of the insects.

It was a desolate, abandoned place where no one would suspect to find a soul that wasn't being paid to be there. And yet there was a reason why the latest batch of demolition had spared one of the buildings, leaving it alone to tower over the demolition machines while the remainder of its row had been reduced to gravel.

The pardon that had spared it the same fate the came from all the way up in the hierarchy: NERV's own Commander Ikari had personally demanded that this building not be touched, not because he was a fan of industrial or brutalist architecture, or because he cared much about preserving the knowledge of the ugly barracks for posterity – He was a rather pragmatic person who cared little about appearances, indeed, he could rarely be bothered to zip the uniform of his own organization.

His reasons for taking pity on the old concrete building were rather simple: It was simply still in use as the dwelling of a very important NERV employee who had no intentions of leaving. Though it might be hard to believe, the silent EVA pilot had picked out and furnished her twilit dwelling by herself. Though the allowance would have sufficed for further amenities, she saw as little reason for unnecessary pomp as her creator and had felt right at home among the concrete slabs, perhaps because it reminder her of the familiar surroundings of the lab she'd been raised in.

Since the city had been practically built by and for NERV, any request that Commander Ikari made would be carried out without questioning. All it took for the First Child's domicile to remain was one simple, one-line email that had barely consumed three minutes of his time.

The construction workers had simply demolished everything around it but given the building a far enough berth to guarantee its structural integrity.

Hence, Ayanami Rei's bedroom had changed very little since Shinji last visited.

The room wasn't necessarily small, but it could also be described as very, very empty, and the naked concrete blocks that made up the walls were devoid of any wallpapers.

The bed had a metal frame and it's sheets didn't seem like they had been straightened out or even touched since Rei had climbed out of it earlier this morning, and on the other end of the room, there was a small fridge with a water-filled beaker and a few packages of medication displayed on top of it.

The most ordinary thing in the room may have been the handful of scattered clothes that one might have expected in the dwelling of a teenager, but it wasn't like they did anything to help the ambiance of the place.

A window was present, but the slim gap between the heavy nylon curtains shut out all but one of the available moonbeams, leaving its light to illuminate the dresser on top of which she kept her books and the commander's old glasses, and finally, the blue-haired girl herself, who happened to be sitting on her plastic folding chair.

There was also a simplistic little sink with a mirror above it, which was where the girl habitually did her dishes, but the objects that had collected in there were a far cry from the collection of bowls, plates and sticky residues that Shinji might have to deal with in the Katsuragi household's kitchen sink – Actually, there was little more than a couple of plastic cups.

The difference, of course, was in large parts due to Rei living here all on her own. When he found the time, the commander would occasionally request for her to be present when he dined, but at the moment, he was away on an important convention in Europe, and not coming back any time soon.

He had been gone for a while and she had known of his expected absence, so she couldn't really say why the flow of her thoughts had grazed the topic of his absence precisely now, though it called her attention to a certain sense of... discomfort or distress flickering across the corners of her awareness, of distinctly being in a state she would prefer not to be in, or maybe this state had been there first, there was a correlation somehow but the direction of causation eluded her.

Under other circumstances, there would have been those occasional brief conversations she would have with the Third Child, but those, too, had become unavailable, as he had spent these last few days engaged in a special training session alongside the Second Child, resulting in both being absent from school.

Even if she'd had more of a reference frame to classify, compare or identify her experience, she would likely not, exactly, have said that she missed either of the Ikari men, and certainly not that she wished they were here rather than doing whatever important tasks they ware currently attending to, as she neither rated this experience which such importance nor expected to derive or associate any comfort from or with his presence.

In truth, she had never had the reason or conscious desire to begin interactions unrelated to her duties, and would likely never have sought out any greater level thereof on her own, but to the extent that they had become part of her existence, she couldn't help but to find in some corner of herself the knowledge that it would be ...good when their time together would eventually result.

Since she had always known what she had been created for, it would never have occurred to her to wish for anything beyond that or to think that she _should_ have more than she did, but by now she had reached some level of awareness or conclusion that she... appreciated when others would spend time with her without any prticular reason strictly elated to the plan.

It eased some pain in the depths of her soul before she'd even fully realized that it was there...

Though all that aside, there was a much simpler, second reason for the sparse amount of dished to be done – There had not been a real dinner today, merely a few servings of cool tap water in order to avoid dehydration, and to help wash down the medication that helped maintain her ever-decaying, artificial shell in some semblance of functionality, as a daily reminder that she wasn't ...real.

Some of today's discomfort may well have been due to purely physical causes.

 

Quietly, she took a single pill out of the bag that Dr. Akagi had assigned her for such cases, and contemplated it silently.

* * *

 

 “W-What?! The Commander called?”

Ritsuko suspected that the rather amusing noise that could be heard from the other side of the phone line was probably caused by a couple of unfortunate empty beer cans that her friend had just inadvertently knocked off her dinner table.

The scientist only hoped that they hadn't caused all too much of a mess – though one may have argued that a mess could also be seen as a good sign, for it would have meant that the cans had not yet been emptied.

“...Uhm... Rit-chan... What did you tell him?”

“The truth, of course.”

Misato swallowed rather audibly.

“The angel displayed an unprecedented ability that overwhelmed our Evangelions, leaving us no choice but to deploy an N²-mine. You and the Children are already working on a complex strategy for the sophisticated counterattack required to defeat the enemy.”

“Oh... Well, that is... well, in a way it _is_ the truth, but when you tell it like that, it sounds a bit too, ehm...”

“That's what happened, isn't it? Then again, if you have any objections to my report, I can try telling him a version of the story that _will_ get you fired.” the blonde offered jokingly.

“No, no, your report is fine!”

“Speaking of which... how is our 'sophisticated counterattack' coming along so far?”

“...well, actually, that depends on how you want to put it ...”

“Let me guess: The word you're looking for is 'abysmal'.”

“There are nicer ways of saying that.” Misato sulked.

“I can tell you're doing your best to a be a serious, mature example for the two of them.”

“ _Very_ funny... By the way, how are the repairs on Unit Zero going? Any chance that you might get it repaired earlier than expected?”

“I suppose we could attempt to use it if it comes to that in an emergency, but... let me put it this way, I was about to ask Rei what color she wants us to paint the armor once the first of the new hull components arrive.”

Misato sighed. “So we cannot rely on it... I get it. But oh, Ritsuko? Maybe Rei can help us is some other way! Actually, do you mind if I borrow her for a bit? I think I just had an idea. Just send her over to my place sometime later, okay? Bye!”

Sighing, Ritsuko put down the receiver, instead reaching for the previously prepared syringe whose contents were intended for the quiet blue haired girl sitting in front of her.

“You heard that, right?”

“Yes, Ma'am.” Rei confirmed, not showing the slightest flinch as the needle pierced her upper arm.

“Alright then. So what color would you like?”

The First Child pondered this briefly.

Since the evangelion's color would be of little importance in battle as long as it could be easily distinguished from the other two, she decided to chose according to her personal preferences, insofar as she had those. Generally, she tended to opt for white objects, as she'd done regarding her plugsuit and much of her underwear, for example. There was no particular reason – She'd simply started it one day and never really stopped without ever giving real thought to the matter.

Perhaps she felt an affinity toward the color because it reminded her of laboratories and lab coats, or maybe it was simply because it was perceived as a somber, neutral an unobtrusive color, and didn't try to catch the eye the way red and other 'bright', 'vigorous' colors.

But at this moment, her thoughts were not with those potential reasons, but two certain people.

“Dark Blue.” she decided simply, led by her stray thoughts. Even discounting them, she did find the shade pleasant, and this wasn't exactly a consequential decision anyways.

“Would it be possible to have the EVA painted dark blue?”

“It wouldn't be a problem.”

“Good. I will be leaving then. Captain Katsuragi is expecting me.”

Wasting little time in buttoning up her shirt and quietly leaving the examination room, Rei swiftly left without as much as a minimal farewell or even a nod of acknowledgment– She had an order to carry out.

* * *

  1. While I am a big fan of Rebuild (or at least, I was, until Q bashed my tiny little heart into a million pieces, but, what else would I expect from this frachise...), I will never understand why they kept EVA 00 in that garish orange color. Not with me!

  2. The adventure will resume in part 2.05: [Katayoku no Tenshi] 





	24. 05: [Katayoku no Tenshi]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What she says: “While Reviews are always nice, I want you t know that I do this mainly for myself & the art, and I'm already satisfied if anyone reads this crap at all, so don't feel pressured or anything. “  
> What she means: “Recognition! Love! Feedback! Validation! FEEEED MY EGOOOOO!!”  
> (She is rather Shinji-like in that respect)

##  **05: [Katayoku no Tenshi]**

\---  
  


_I’m not the one for you_

_You’re not the one for me_

_We are like night and day_

_But damn I want you anyway  
_

_Together we are one_

_Like flowers who’ve kissed the sun_

_But deep inside I know you hate me_

_Well I hate you too, you irritate me  
_

_-Zombie Girl,’Gonna Getcha’_ _  
_

  


\---  


_“Berlin._

_A city like patchwork._

_The devastation of Second Impact and the wars that followed it are only the latest examples in a long line of destructive cataclysm to shake the Capital to its foundations. But as usual, it has taken the people only a few years to manufacture at least a superficial state of florescence, now that the squalor has been banished into its designated districts. It is nothing if now one sprawling monument to humanity's inability to create a state of equality and justice, its tendency toward forming scars, and its desire for vapid pompous fronts. After all, it was not natural disasters or twists of fate that had been smashing and burning its buildings, but political conflicts, wars and revolution – Even Second Impact was a man-made tragedy, albeit a tragedy of our own making._

_Man is sad, pitiful creature with an unending hunger for destruction, just as incapable of coexisting with his own kind as he is of existing by himself._

_That they even live here, refusing to abandon this farce of a city, is mockery and scoff.”_

_“That we are sad, weak creatures cannot be denied. The need for cities and houses at all is in itself undeniable proof of our insufficiency. Scared and cowardly, man cowers in his hiding places, steadily generating intricate, novel ways to hide away from the elements and escape from the harsh laws and judgments of nature. Some of them might make a phony performance of longing to return to it, but what they long for are ultimately neatly trimmed lawns and strictly pruned trees; None of them would chose to expose themselves to the insects, or the diseases that could quickly end their weak existence; They rarely mind interfering with nature when it serves to save their lives. On a fundamental level, all endeavors of humanity had sought to put a distance between itself and nature._

_They struggle to maintain their crumbling cities, the monuments to their shame, and their ever-decaying bodies in an endless, futile battle against the rigors of nature.”_

_“And all that, even though they must know that their battle is damned to be lost. There is no limit to their unbelievable pride!”_

“It might well seem like a farce next to the lifespans of planets and stars, but I wouldn't say that it is pride which drove them to sustain this city. They're not so noble that they'd consider their pride to be worth all this strenuous labor. They do it because it's the only way to live.

Such is the reason that we hid away in buildings to begin with, and it will be for that reason that we will leave them behind along with the disgraceful needs they once fulfilled.”

“Indeed! But still, aren't you a little early, Ikari? I'd have expected that you'd spend the night in Hamburg.”

“You know of my disdain for such unnecessary delay, chairman. We can rest to our hearts' contents once the promised day has come, and once it erases our frailties, the need for rest itself will be erased from this world. It is that day we all dolefully desire.”

“You know, Ikari, when you first told us that all these years ago, we did not believe you, and we're beginning to doubt that your foolhardiness is a thing of the past, even if you have wiped that smirk off your face.”

“I don't know what would give you reason for such doubt. Is it the incident with Unit Five? The investigations were inconclusive.”

“Absence of evidence is the most damming evidence of all.”

“There is any arbitrary number of things that can be absent from a place or event.”

“That way be right, but do not forget who brought you into your position, and why. We are quite aware of the extent of your abilities.”

“...which are being used exclusively in the service of our scenario.”

“...let us hope that.”

“So, what is so confidential that we cannot discuss it over the usual channels? Headquarters is currently engaged in countering an angel attack. I naturally keep myself informed, but-”

“Your people have managed without you before, there is nothing to worry about. According to the scrolls, this messenger shouldn't be too much of a challenge. We are to discuss the details of the ceremonies for the instrumentality project, as well as some issues regarding our pact with Lillith. We ordered you here because we have had to deal with certain security issues as of late... Do you know anything about it?”

“No, I do not.”

 

\----

 

Her long, sky blue hair flowed into the midday wind like a streaming liquid, an irregular band resembling a tattered flag whose corresponding pole was comprised of her pale body.

Seated on the debris of a ruined building, she observed the two colossal sky-scraper sized silhouettes that were slowly but steadily melting into one.

There wasn't much else she could do – the process she wanted to prevent had already begun, and the structure she was interfering in was delicate.

At least, so she thought as she absentmindedly licked the red liquid off her fingers, this would not happen again.

 

\----

 

In agony, the short-haired girl dragged herself through an alleyway, her tight-fitting white clothing in rags. Both the floor she'd tread on and the walls she was leaning on were marked with a smear of red, marking her path as if to find her a way out of a labyrith – how ironic.

Of all things and concepts in this universe, a 'way back' was probably the absolutely last thing she could be said to have.

One of the orange buttons on her outfit had been ripped of, the other was hanging off her on a few strings of fabric and ripped up cables.

She doubted that the device would ever function again.

In her eagerness to protect what she'd come here to save, she had neglected to maintain her strategic advantage – If her father were here, he'd probably tell her that she'd made the mistake of risking something she had only one of – that being her life and her equipment – for something that she could stand to lose time and time again... but the truth was that she couldn't say how long it had been since she had seen the man's face – She'd had no way to keep track of the time since her departure, no way to leave marks that wouldn't be washed away by the temporal tides.

Did this mean that she had lost? That her long, arduous, exhausting journey had finally reached it an end that was both premature and yet long, long overdue?

Ichijou Yui had reached the end of the road, both literally and figuratively – the alleyway ended at the edge of a larger street, and the wall to which she had been holding on simply ended, and she lost her grip like the floor had been pulled out from underneath her feet.

Incapable of mounting even the most pitiful parody of resistance against gravity, the frail girl collapsed, slammed head-first into the pavement, loudly, inelegantly, with her head and face splashing into a puddle, and not moving any further.

In bands and clouds, a red liquid dispersed into the water, spreading out in streaks of orange and yellow as is was diluted.

It tasted awful.

Was that it?

Did this mean that, just like that, everything was over forever?

It seemed possible that even without her, the chain might eventually be broken by coincidence, but she'd seen too much to believe in such luck.

She began to ponder if she'd ever really believed she could do this, and if the answer to that made her a hypocrite.

One last time, she put up with the pain of opening her eyes and focusing, however narrowly.

Only one of them was any good, the other being under water.

Somehow, despite her wounds, it still didn't fully register that this was to be the end; She had been wounded before, and besides, this barely looked like the staging of a final end:

She sun was lazily passing in between a handful of leftover clouds, a faint rainbow could be discerned, there was singing birds and chirping cicadas...

It didn't _feel_ like it should be the end...

Then, a shadow, a streak of darkness cutting her off from what little light was left to her in the brief remainder of her life.

She was tempted to believe that there was none of it left anywhere within the bounds of creation, no more life, no more hope, no more future...

Next, there was motion, a surge of pain, a dizzying turning of her head and body, and a mass of sticky, drenched dark hair. There was air. Evaporating cool liquid.

Azure blue sky, and stinging sunlight above her.

Cold.

Words, silhouettes, urgent voices that shouted and shook at her.

Sky. Blue Sky, that her eyes remained glued to, her thoughts slowing to a halt and taking a while to transmit an delayed order. Finally, her gaze found the spots and shadows, needing a while to process or decide which parts of them she was even supposed to focus on.

Oh, that's what it was.

Boys, three of them.

Odd.

She knew these two, didn't she? The third was less familiar, but she probably must have seen him _somewhere_ before. Why these glasses?

Ah right. It must be a distinction of this variants, most of them had some. ..

But why all this big fuss with the hectic, frantic ways in which they talked to each other or typed around on their devices.

What were they so upset about?

 

\---

 

The doors had barely closed behind the strange girl and the stretcher bearing her unconscious form when the vehicle sped away, flashing blue lights, sirens and all, leaving the boys standing at the edge of the sidewalk, the shock still plain on their faces.

 

Touji's summarized of the situation he and his friends had inadvertently stumbled into just there with the words “Holy crap.”

“I just hope that that poor girl is going to be okay. She looked _really_ bad...”

“This was way beyond messed up...”

Kensuke's words came from the heart, and Touji's genuinely affected expression made further gestures of agreement unnecessary. As for Nagato, it would not have been much of an exaggeration to say that he was distinctly beside himself. Of the three, he seemed the most affected – granted, unlike them, he didn't have the prior experience of being very nearly squashed by a biomechanical war machine...

The older boy had buried his fingers in the black fabric of his pants, gripping the folds tightly as he stared straight away, as if in a trance. Upon a closer look, he seemed paler than usual and couldn't quite manage to stop shaking since that girl had collapsed at his feet.

While the others had immediately knelt down beside her to try and help, he'd sunken to his knees upon noticing the sheer amount of blood and mumbled unintelligible things while continuing to stare in horror.

Touji had turned the stranger onto her side, surveyed her injuries and tried to shake her awake, telling her to remain conscious, whereas Kensuke had immediately pulled out his phone to call for an ambulance.

After that, everything had gone rather fast.

In fact, so fast that the whole incident had been over before Nagato could even get close to processing its beginning – the sight of the stranger, of blood and dark hair spilling across the floor, had touched the memory of a few images from his past that he'd rather forget... so he stood there, waiting for them to fade on their own or be flushed out by the next thing to distract him.

“Hey, Nagato, is everything okay?”

Kensuke. The other two must eventually have noticed his predicament. Touji held out a hand to help him up.

“Yeah... Yeah, it's fine...” he stated, hesitantly taking Touji's hand, yet unable to tear his eyes from the direction in which the ambulance had dissapeared.

“I was just wondering... who she was. Do you guys think she was mugged or something?”

“Could be.” Touji's expression darkened. “Who is the world even _does_ this sick stuff? If I got my fists on them, I'd just... argh!”

He emphatically punched the air to have at least some way of venting his anger.

For a change, the taller boy had actually bothered to put on his uniform this morning and seemed to be wearing something violet beneath it. The other two were wearing their uniforms, too, though there wasn't anything unusual about that.

“But, guys.” Kensuke interjected. “Don't you think her clothes looked a lot like those piloting suits Shinji and Shikinami wear?”

“Now that you say it her outfit was kinda weird. And it was in bits, too! I suppose I'll ask about her the next time I go to visit my sister. But for now, we've got someone else to worry about... I really wonder where Shinji has _been_ all this time.”

“You're right...” Kensuke agreed. “He does get pulled out of class for piloting stuff all the time, but now he's been absent for three whole days, I'm kinda beginning to worry.”

“Me too.” Nagato admitted. Especially since there was an evacuation alert, but the area in question is _still_ sealed off. I was going to ask Ayanami about it, but this morning, she was absent _too_. And I didn't get around to asking my dad because he's been very busy these days. He didn't tell me anything in particular, but, at this point it doesn't seem unlikely that they lost another battle...”

“They did.” Kensuke explained. “I looked it up on my dad's computer. The photographs of the Evangelions were solid comedy gold. But the report said nothing about the pilots.”

“You don't think they got hurt?”

“Well...” Touji commented, turning toward the row of tall apartment complexes that had been the trio's destination in the first place before they encountered the mysterious girl. “...there's only one way to find out.”

 

\---

 

The 'way' Touji spoke of ended up leading to the appartment which Shinji currently shared with his attractive guardian, and, since that happened to be in the eleventh floor, involved riding on of the two elevators in this part of the building complex.

Touji and Kensuke were already quite familiar with this dwelling, and even Mitsurugi junior had been here once or twice.

But this was the first time that any of them encountered anyone other than Shinji or Misato in here. None of the other doors bore any name tags or decorations, and even from an outside view, few of the other balconies showed signs of having been used or even furnished. Besides the two NERV associates, there did not seem to be very many people living here, which wasn't surprising when one considered the recent trend of people leaving the city in droves or the general population decline in the post-impact world.

Quite the opposite – what actually surprised the boys, was to hear the chime of the second elevator in the exact same moment they were about to leave the first.

At first, Touji intended only to cast a curious glance at whoever happened to arrive at the same time as them, but when they unexpectedly saw a familiar face emerging behind the steel doors, he wasn't content to merely look at her.

“... wait, is that you, class rep?”

Her words confirmed what her freckles, twin-tails and unfailingly neat school uniform had already suggested:

“Oh look, it's there-fourths of the idiot quartet.”

Unbelievably, she didn't even say the last word in a particular mocking tone, merely using it as if it were a proper name or title. Touji wasn't sure if that made it less or more irritating.

Besides, she seemed to be including Nagato without further comments, though one might have spent a long time philosophizing on whether that was a reason for rejoicing.

But there was another, far more urgent question posed by her words:

“What are you even doing here?”

“Uhm, I, I was going to visit Shikinami-san. And you?”

“We're here to see Ikari-kun.” Touji answered, truthfully.

Thus, one question led to the next and resulted in a kind of domino effect that led to the four of them incredulously blinking at each other.

“Then what are you doing here then?”

“What do you think? This is where he lives. Appartment Number 1101.”

“That's strange. That's exactly the same as Shikinami-san's new address...”

“You must have remembered it wrong then.” Touji concluded.

But Hikari shook her head, and pulled out a little folded-up paper which, once unfolded, turned out to be a copy of the address list for their class, with the Second Child's address highlighted in a pink text marker.

However, that same list also turned out to confirm the boys' claims about _Shinji's_ current residence.

“Seems like we have a mystery here.” Kensuke commented.

Despite the boy's emphatic assurances that they were absolutely certain that this was Shinji's place, had been here a dozen times and that Asuka's address must have been subject to a mix-up or a misprint, Hikari insisted on coming along and get some visual confirmation of who exactly lived in that apartment.

To underline their argument, the boys led her across the hallway, all the way to the offending door, and lo and behold: The numbers matched.

Nonetheless, Hikari was still skeptical.

“This says 'Katsuragi'.”

“Of course it does. That's the name of Shinji's gardian.” Touji explained. “You remember that hot babe who showed up for the last parent-teacher meeting?”

Nagato cringed with second-hand embarassment.

Hikari's soberly griped reaction suggested that this did indeed ring a bell.

After Hikari had admonished Touji and Kensuke to refrain from acting like apes, it was decided that the three of the would be ringing the doorbell together, as a diplomatic solution to avoid further conflict.

Though Nagato, less passionate or involved than the rest, stood to the side, all four of them hoped that whatever would open the door would resolve it all as a big misunderstanding.

But once they were confronted with the sight which the door had been heroically shielding them from so far, the emotion of relief was about the last thing any of them felt.

Quite the opposite – Touji and Kensuke wildly waved their arms around, their expressions resembling those of someone who'd inadvertently touched some gross, slimy leftovers from the bottom of the sink, Hikari manifested spasms of not only but especially her right eyebrow, and Nagato was forced to take a step back in order to keep his balance.

It was probably hardly worth mentioning that they all looked to be at best, deeply traumatized and at worst, like they had just encountered a physically impossible, lovecraftian abomination far beyond the ability of the human mind to comprehend.

“Y-You traitor...” Touji stammered, being the first to remember where he'd left his tongue.

“They're even wearing pair-look again...” Kensuke concluded incredulously. “Gross!”

Judging by his expressions, he too seemed rather shaken – quite an achievement given that we're discussing an individual whose most cherished dream was to fight absurd impossible creatures in a partially biological war machine whose insides stank of blood – not to speak of the distinctly more sensitive Mitsurugi junior, who was too overloaded to even express his shock, and contented himself with a quiet request for a glass of water.

Theoretically, what they found behind the door should have pleased everyone involved, given that both Shinji _and_ Asuka were revealed within the confines of the Katsuragi apartment, but that was precisely the issue: They just stood there, right next to each other, wearing exactly the same costume down to the headphones, as Kensuke has previously implied.

And then, on top of that, the costume had to be a close-fitting, shimmering-black leotard that some wouldn't consider fit for men, complete with little decorative overshirts printed with adorable illustrations of musical notes, distinguishable only in their color – pink for the girl, blue for the boy.

“We're not doing this because we want to!” the pair answered. The ostensibly shameful sound of their voices may have mitigated their friends' wrong impression if it wasn't overshadowed by the way they were speaking in absolute unison – though the word choice in their explanation was somewhat clumsy as well: “It's all Misato's fault, she's making us do everything together, not just the clothes, but talking, eating, even sleeping!”

This was the point when Hikari's twitching gave way to a full-on derailment of her facial features: “You two are so indecent!”

“W-Wait, it's all a misunderstanding!” the duo assured, in Asuka's case, angrily, whereas Shinji sounded rather lost, though again, their speaking at once did not much bolster their credibility.

Hikari, whose view of the worl and these two people in particular had been thoroughly shattered, was not convinced.

“What could you possibly misunderstand about _this_!” she wailed, burying her hand in her face because she could no longer stand to behold the preternatural perversion before her.

 

“Oh, Welcome!”

With the exception of Hikari, whose current state barely qualified as responsible, everyone turned their attention toward the new arrival insofar as their state of abject shock, or, in the Children's case, humiliation, allowed for it.

They had been joined by the apartment's owner, who, insofar as the Children's creepy unison could be trusted, was supposedly to blame for the whole debacle.

She seemed to be carrying a large brown envelope – oh, and for some reason, Rei was with her, too.

Touji didn't know what to make of her usual cheerful smile, or if the way she was acting like this was nothing out of the ordinary was in any way good or bad, but since she currently seemed more trustworthy than a certain friend of his (whose current clothing raised doubts about his sexual orientation and seemed nigh identical to the piece of black nylon wrapped around what a person who just a few days ago, had been their common arch enemy), he decided that Misato would be his best bet for getting any sort of reasonable answer concerning all this.

So it was her whom he addressed, while pointing his right thumb backward at the circus behind him: “Uh, would you mind explaining this?”

 

\----

 

“So _that's_ what why! Why didn't you say so right away?”

After all visitors including Rei had been provided with a reasonable explanation and a nice, cool lemonade, the relief that Hikari and Three-Fourths-Of-The-Idiot-Quartett had given up upon had eventually set in despite all the adversities once Misato revealed the reasoning behind the unconventional training method, which, in light of the situation, didn't seem that far-fetched after all.

Between the sugary beverages, the resident house-penguin, and Misato's contagious cheerfulness, the four of them had forgotten the initial shock by the time they were seated around the table – Hikari in particular immediately took to the strange bird, and asked to pet the creature.

(Touji had not expected her to have a side like that. If you looked at at her like this, cooing over an adorable animal, you could almost mistake her for a normal, non-bossy, even rather sweet girl. Almost.)

But even so, she did not lose sight of their objective – to check on the two EVA pilots.

They were ostensibly unhurt, but she understood that the next battle was imminent: “So, how is the training coming along?”

Yeah, about Misato's previously mentioned cheerfulness? Not much of it was left by the time Misato was finished with that sentence. “See for yourselves...”

A collective sigh ensued.

If Misato was thereby implying that the spectacle the high school students could witness at the other end of the room was representative of how far her efforts had come in the last few days, things did not look rosy for the future of humanity.

Apart from Rei, who was currently busy reading through some papers on a clipboard, everyone present around the table unanimously declared the sight a valid reason to hang their heads in resignation.

For Asuka, this reaction was the last straw – For days, she had been forced to walk around in this ridiculous getup, chained to that meek and vapid lecher, who did nothing but produce half-hearted stuttering and weigh her down like a ball and chain – And all this after he'd cost her her first, grand victory and caused her untold humiliation.

And now, some clueless bitch who wouldn't even recognize talent if there were a huge, glowing red arrow to show her the way, had the gall to parade her in front of an audience and pretend like she was somehow a hopeless case just because she couldn't manage to monkey the every move of some clumsy dumb-ass – Daddy's boy was about as 'elegant' as any other pathetic timid shut-in without a life.

It was only natural after all: She was _nothing_ like him, and that was a very good thing. She was _better_ and didn't see why she should in any way be confined to the limitations of some random wimp who didn't even bother to hide his own inadequacy – Why would be even _want_ to be like him?

Why in the world _should_ she?

Thoroughly frustrated, Asuka tore off the headphones through which she was supposed to hear the music that was to be used for this ridiculous undertaking, throwing them at the feet of a mildly worried Hikari.

“That's enough!” she declared, enraged. “It's _obvious_ that I can't adjust my movements to the level of this awkward klutz! It's impossible, and I've said that from the beginning!”

Her claim was underlined not only by her hand gestures, but Shinji himself who, distracted by her complaints, lost balance and slammed head first into the twister mat which Misato had arranged on the living room floor as part of an improvised training device.

He hadn't partaken in regular exercise, let alone _dancing_ , at any point in his life, and thus had enough difficulties hitting the occasionally glowing circles beneath him at all, even before featuring in distractions.

(And really, who could he have played sports _with_? With his teacher, perhaps? The man had made a few attempts to coax his reclusive ward into taking a course, joining a club or simply catching some fresh air, but all these options necessarily implied contact with other people, something that Shinji had avoided more and more for every year that he'd gone without any relevant experience – he'd been far too afraid of saying something wrong or being hit in the face with a ball, or being yelled at because he'd kept his hypothetical team members from victory or taken up the teacher's time and patience with his ineptitude.

The wound that his father's rejection had ripped into the boy's soul had gaped just as widely in the years following, and rather than softening the memory of being hated, time had distorted into into a terrifying caricature the very thought of which he couldn't bear to contemplate – And that fear still plagued him to this day, but back then, before the fights, before Misato, Touji, Kensuke or Rei, the fright had extended to the mildest of criticisms or the briefest hostile glance – and to avoid interacting with anyone to the extent that they could form an opinion of him had been a simple and efficient way to avoid that. And thus, it had not been that unusual for him to go several days without speaking a single word, and hardly ever to anyone other than his teacher.)

 

“So you're giving up?”

At first, Asuka thought of Misato's question as a joke intended to raise morale, and thus assumed a posture that was more worthy of herself and implied clearly that she'd never consider that option in any serious manner. She even laughed a little to clarify that and to assure that the expectations directed at her would be fulfilled: “Well, it's not like you have anyone else for the job.”

“Rei?”

“Yes?”

“Why don't _you_ give it a try?”

“Yes, Ma'am.”

The primary goal of that attempt was not so much to actually replace Asuka as to motivate her a bit – Sure, if the Second Child were to persist in her uncooperative stance, it would at least be practical to know what results could be expected from using the First Child instead, but since EVA 00 was still being repaired and Rei's synch rate with EVA 02 would never reach that of Asuka or even the already humble numbers she managed with her own unit, Misato would vastly prefer to deploy Asuka – This little demonstration was only meant to get her off her high horse, prune her rampant ego and remind her of her own position.

If Misato could have fathomed the _actual_ effect that this measure would have on Asuka's feelings, she would never have considered it.

Of all sudden, all confidence had vanished from the Second Child's demeanor; With every step that Rei took toward the training mats, her aura of glamor collapsed into an insecure teenager who seemed increasingly lost, even fearful.

It was as if the floor had been pulled out from underneath her feet – what she witnessed before her eyes defied all rules of the worldview upon which she had built her identity – She was supposed to be Shikinami Asuka Langley, the Second Child, the best in the world... a special person who was needed for the saving of the world.

This here... shouldn't even be _possible_ without her, let alone for a soser and an antisocial freak like Daddy's boy and Wondergirl.... they shouldn't be any threat to her at all, they shouldn't even be _capable_ of competing with her.

And yet, it was happening without her, just as it had before she'd even arrived here.

The First Child, that arrogant bitch who considered herself too good to become friends with her, didn't waste a single opportunity to humiliate her – (What was it that she lacked? What was she missing? What was so wrong with her that this gil wouldn't spare her a glance? No, no, that was wrong. It was clearly _wondergirl_ who had to have something wrong with her. It was all _her,_ the arrogant little bitch.)

Without deeming her worthy of a single look, Unit Zero's pilot picked up the discarded headphones and took her place next to that simpleton, and began her no-holds barred humiliation of Asuka.

As soon as the music had stated, Captain Shikinami was forced to watch helplessly as her reason for existing was stomped into the ground by those two nobodies – The motions of the pair were perfectly synchronous, every note and every circle was hit precisely, every single muscle seemed to be tensed and relaxed to the same extent, down to the curving of their spines, the positioning of their fingers and countless tiny details that one shouldn't be able to emulate at will.

It was like watching reflections or identical twins, as if they could read or even predict each other's thoughts.

If Shinji's pinky was poking out of the circle to the left, then Rei's would be doing the same.

In other words: Natural compatibility.

The redhead was devastated.

How could this antisocial bitch who had the lowest synch rate among all pilots, master with such singlehandled grace a task that Asuka hadn't pulled of after three days of training?

How _dare_ she?!

Why wasn't that stupid Daddy's saying anything against it?

And had she actually been expecting any help from that _(better, more experienced fighter_ ) useless loser?

She... couldn't believe it, she just couldn't take this anymore.

This should have been different, all of this... it was completely unlike anything she'd pictured he many, many times she'd thought of how her glorious arrival in this country was supposed to go.

The genuinely impressed “Wow!” from her classmates was the cherry on top of the humiliation.

“Looks like Shinji and Rei might be the better pair for this operation.” Misato scoffed, driving the last nail into Asuka's perceived coffin.

She wanted to retort something, but she couldn't think of anything to say.

A sob escaped from her mouth.

She hadn't done anything wrong! She was the best, _better_ than this half-wit... so why weren't they even giving her chance to take part in the fight for which she had been preparing her entire life?

What sort of an useless piece of trash did you have to be if you couldn't even do the one thing she had, without exaggeration, _lived_ for these past ten years?

She was Captain Shikinami Asuka Langley, _an EVA pilot_.

The only point of an EVA pilot was to fight in her EVA!

If she couldn't do that... if they wouldn't let her do that... if they... wouldn't need her at all...

Oh no.

_Oh no._

Were those... actually... _tears_ that were gathering warm and traitorously as the corners of her eyes as she was uselessly stammering to herself?

Was she crying?

After she'd sworn that she'd never cry again?

No... no that couldn't be, not in front of, not _because_ of the people in this room. They ought to be nothing to her.

This helpless little crybaby that wasn't needed... that didn't have what it took to stay here... _that was not the kind of person she wanted to be, damnit!_

Hiding the liquid proof of her shame from those who would delight in them, Asuka turned around and fled from the room in desperation, additionally aggrieved by the paper doors in this insufferable foreign country hat couldn't even be slammed properly.

“A-Asuka-san!” Hikari called after her, worried by her uncharacteristic behavior, but to no avail.

In the uncomfortable silence, the sound of the automatic apartment door closing was impossible to miss.

“Well look at that, seems like she does have feelings after all.” Touji commented, devoid of sympathy.

Not to sound insensitive, but, in his opinion, this girl really oughtn't be surprised to find out that her ass wasn't the center of the universe – Hikari, on the other hand, saw this whole situation rather differently and remained staunchly loyal to her most recent friend:

“IKARI-KUN!” she angrily addressed at the boy in the silly costume, who'd already interrupted his attempts at dancing by the time Asuka had stormed out of the room, whereas Rei, who didn't catch the immediate connection between her emotional outburst and the cessation of their current activity as she didn't see how her stopping or taking any other action could have quelled the redhead's wrath, continued executing her orders until she realized that Shinji was no longer providing any movements for her to copy.

The boy, who had been looking at the half-open sliding door through which Asuka had disappeared, his expression mostly puzzled but also a little worried, turned to face Hikari in response to her wide gestures, removing his headphones in order to better understand her.

Unfortunately, those had somewhat dampened her initial shouting, leaving Shinji unprepared for the vigorous bark that now awaited him:

“Come on, go after her!” the class representative demanded.

“Heh?” Shinji replied, flinching at the harshness of her tone. He wished girls would make sense more often. He didn't understand what he'd done wrong, or why Asuka was suddenly upset about not having to do a task that she'd been incessantly complaining about for the past four days.

“You made a girl cry!” Hikari elucidated. “Take responsibility for your actions!”

Shinji paled, unable to say anything.

He'd... made her cry?

Was he even capable of that?

Until now, he'd considered himself completely unable to touch the Second Child in any way, as if she were existing... high above him, and everything he could say would be repelled like drops of Rain from the surface of a lotus plant.

She'd always projected an aura of complete self-reassuredness and superiority, as if nothing that Shinji or anyone else could do would be more important to her than the earthworms crawling in the dirt she walked upon.

And now, he was expected to believe that she could _cry?_

That he could _make_ her cry?

The Third Child no longer understood anything in this world.

Even though he couldn't imagine what in the world he could have done to merit this reaction, he couldn't stand the idea of having _hurt_ another, even if it was a person whom he disliked.

Unlike certain other people he lacked malice or hostility... and the very concept of being responsible for other people's hardship could drive him to madness.

It wasn't this paralyzing panic from the days with his teachers or the fights before the Futagoyama incident, but this small, accusing voice in the back of his head that longed to erase not just Asuka's tears but also Hikari's wrath, was enough to tip the scales in his decision of whether to follow her or not in favor of overlooking his disdain for the girl.

He didn't think he'd be successful and in fact fully expected to be yelled at, but at very least Hikari might be satisfied by his willingness to try.

But finding the enraged EVA pilot was easier said than done, since it was hard to tell where she could have ran off to after leaving the apartment.

His chances of catching up to her before she left the building were dim.

In the end, the necessary clue came, ironically, from Shinji's function as a dedicated 'house husband' as Asuka had often described it in mockery over the last few days – the shopping list he'd dutifully written and affixed to the apartment door to remind himself to buy the necessary items the next time he left the house was no longer in place – besides, he faintly remembered hearin Asuka complaining to Misato about the lack of fruit and salad in this household, and that she [Asuka] unlike some other people [Misato] “had a figure to maintain.”

To be honest, Shinji thought that Misato's figure was perfectly fine and that it was Asuka who could use some more meat on her bones, but her complaining suggested that she may have gone to grab the desired salad by herself, along with those beauty products she also kept demanding.

Which meant that with some luck, he might find her at the nearest grocery store.

He didn't waste any time getting rid of the ridiculous outfit – Hikari's deathglare was scary – and departed to collect his redheaded sister-in-arms.

Knowing that she must have been running, he made an effort to walk as quickly as he could and ignore the many looks that his getup was garnering, but, as we had previously mentioned, he was not exactly athletic, causing him to be rather out of breath before he even reached the closest stores and forcing him to take a break halfway through.

As he was gasping for air with an arm placed on a nearby wall to support himself, he noticed a shiny object in the vicinity of his feet.

Shinji wasn't the type to take action out of curiosity, especially when he happened to be in a hurry, but the writing on the object, which happened to be a familiar yellow badge, convinced him to pick it up with only two words: “Yui I.”

Wasn't this the same alleyway where he'd met her the first time?

In a state of ambivalence, he felt the sides of the metal name tag.

It felt cool, smooth and most certainly real.

He wanted to throw it far, far away so he'd never have to see it, so he wouldn't need to be reminded of the terrible prophecy for which it stood.

He positioned his arm for the throw, but his fingers wouldn't let go.

This thing was the only proof that he hadn't gone mad, the only material evidence.

He took it with him.

Why would Yui leave it here?

Wondering if she was about to show up out of thin air, as she was wont to do, he glanced into the alleyway from whence she had come last time, suddenly afflicted by the fearful superstition that he might accidentally summon her with a thought.

There was something red, further back on the wall, a stripe, a streak –

Fresh, red, with individual rivulets running down all over it's full length, distorted red handprints forming a line, leading to what appeared to be writing further back in the darkness of the alley.

He could only see the end of it, but even so, he had no doubts about how the full sentence would go: 'The world is wrong'.

Shinji ran for it.

Mostly so he wouldn't miss Asuka.

Sure, there might have been additional reasons, but he refused to think about them as of now.

If Yui were here, she'd probably have advised him to follow Asuka anyway – wasn't that what she had said? That the battles they would be facing in the foreseeable future would require for him, Asuka and everyone else to fight together?

That is was the only way to defeat the enemy?

She didn't seem to be too far off as far as the next battle was concerned, the one looming in his personal future right now... it was actually rather evident, he'd never even considered that he could handle this gargantuan task on his own. But even something as intuitive a the simple truth that the challenges of life couldn't always be mastered took on an ominous, foreign tint when they came from this Yui person – it was almost like she'd known that this entire ridiculous incident was coming.

But one way or another, it was of urgent, vital importance that he find Asuka.

So he sped up.

Before long, he arrived at the nearest cluster of stores, not exactly what you'd call a mall, but – people. Sounds. Reality.

Opportunities to assure himself that he was seeing the same things as everybody else.

So, Asuka – she was the very reason he'd come here.

He had to find her.

She wasn't in the drugstore, but the sales clerk had seen her – Part-European girls in leotards weren't exactly a common sight around here.

Next, Shinji tried the grocery store – Bingo.

He found her crouching in front of an open refrigerator cabinet, picking out a soda.

In the time that it took for him to track her down, she had come to a decision.

If she hadn't been expecting him, she'd at least composed the words that she was planning to address him with -

When he walked over to her side and signaled his presence with an uncertain “Uhm...”, she immediately clarified that he could keep all of his apologies or assurances to himself: “Look, I get it. You don't need to say anything.”

Even if she wasn't looking at him, he knelt down as a basic gesture of respect and goodwill, to see eye-to-eye with her both literally and figuratively, and to avoid the impression that he was looking at down at her in either of those ways like a 'Daddy's Boy' would.

How Asuka could see him as anything resembling a threat was far beyond him – He knew full well that he made for a rather pathetic sight and one would think that she saw it clearly, given how she tended to mock him.

He'd acted hostile toward her because she'd treated _him_ like dirt, but in the end, he'd much prefer it if they could treat each other with at least _some_ measure of civility – The Third Child was anything but a fan of discord and strife.

He wanted to offer her his understanding, if she should want it – and to his great surprise, she seemed ready to accept his help: “I know. I have no choice. I have to pilot the EVA...”

But this wasn't belated insight talking, but rather a broken, downtrodden pride, a half-hearted, resigned admittance. This wasn't in the least the look of a happy, matured or relieved person, more like a beautiful fantastic creature from which something essential had been torn off, like someone had taken a sledgehammer to all its magic and left it broken on the floor, like a broken angel who'd had it's wings ripped off and been left to fend for themselves in the storm, alone without the means to find their way home.

She looked... broken.

Damaged, clipped, stunted, repressed, bleeding but not bleeding out, burning but not burning up, simply spending her every day walking through the day with a quantum of unhappiness that wouldn't go away.

She looked just like him.

The sight of her crouching body folded upon itself, too alike to his on reflection in the refrigerated shelf's glass door through which he was observing her, and too significant in its overlap down to the lowered position of her head and the lost look in her eyes...

She had said that she 'had' to pilot the EVA, that she had no choice but to do it – Those were words that, to Shinji, sounded painfully familiar.

She didn't seem to see it as the tremendous burden that it was to him, but there could be no doubt that being an EVA pilot was extremely important to Asuka.

She, too, seemed to have some sort o reason that bound her to the war machine.

She too seemed to have something to prove...

Quite abruptly, it occurred to him that this perplexing, seemingly superior creature that had spent days whipping him with her scorn was only human.

That the Second Child had wishes, hopes and even fears just like everyone else, one of those fears being the of being the prospect of being... unneeded.

Just a moment ago, Shinji would never have believed that he would ever find any common ground between Asuka and herself, yet that fear appeared to be something that they both shared.

He didn't understand a thing about her most of the time, but in this precise moment, he probably had a very good grasp of what she must have been feeling.

And to see this person who had seemed so proud and strong feeling like that, and looking like that, that just looked _wrong_ in more ways than Shinji could describe.

But even if they were both broken creatures short of a wing, even they might be able to fly if they wrapped their arms around each other and flew together.

Sometimes, when people came together, they could fly –

Even she had to understand that after the First Child had just presented that ugly mirror to her face. The Third Child might have been an idiot, but out of the whole bunch consisting of the First, Misato and those stupid boys he was probably the least insufferable one.

This indirect implication of a half-decision might well have been the only way that she would allow herself to ask for help.

Cementing the finality of her resolution by rising to her feet and closing the refrigerator, she declared the conversation over by asserting that she would do it.

She'd work together with Shinji to carry out this operation.

As soon as he was back on her feet, that enviable aura of strength had returned.

It was probably the first time that his response to it was glad glad rather than intimidated.

However, it was _also_ the first time he came to consider the possibility that, at least on some levels, she was a normal girl.

 

However one might want to spin it, and whatever might have come followed after this n the days to come, at that point, Shinji genuinely felt like a moment of understanding might have passed between them, and before he knew it, he was being ordered around by his new flatmate in order to grab the remaining half of the grocery. With their combined efforts, they managed to acquire everything on the list and soon left the job carrying several plastic bags. Of course, Asuka insisted that Shinji do most of the carrying, but she 'generously' allowed him a break first, though under the excuse that she herself was hungry.

Thus, the pair wound up at a nearby bench, taking their time to consume a few refreshments, consisting mostly of some freshly-bought ready-made sandwiches.

You could hardly call it a kindness, but given the state of affairs so far, even attenuated meanness represented a quantum leap in their relations.

Shinji had come to know her at least this far – that is, he already felt like he was a little bit closer to her than he'd been in the days before.

Her admission that she needed him for this did not mean that she _liked_ or even _wanted_ to be around him, but now, she tolerated him.

Something like this meal in the evening sun wouldn't have been possible before – Someone who initially disliked him had ceased to treat him with unconditional rejection.

Someone had hated him... and he'd been able to change that, at least a tiny little bit.

It wasn't much, or even enough for anything by itself, just a teensy teeny baby step, and he tried his best not to think too much of it but he couldn't ignore that pleasant warmth spreading from inside him, and neither did he want to –

So even with someone who thought as little of him as Asuka, there was a chance of improving their relationship.

Maybe, one day, even his father could be made to not dislike him anymore...

One very distant, very faraway day...

“Eat up!” Captain Shikinami ordered, unavoidably using the bench as a pedestal to adress him from above. “It's full of proteins and vitamin! I don't want you to fall behind during training just because you don't have enough of these in your skull!

We've got to show it to Misato and the First, and pay them back in spades!”

“Payback? But what _for_?” asked Shinji who, despite everything else, still didn't understand what exactly Rei, Misato or himself for that matter were supposed to have done wrong.

As usual, Asuka eyes him like a toddler who'd just asked a stupid question.

“How can you be so oblivious! At least you as a man should understand this!” The Second Child took one furious bite out of her sandwich. “They've humiliated me! They've hurt my pride! I can't possibly let them get away with that!”

Although that answer didn't bring Shinji any closer to understanding her aversions, he couldn't help but to break into a small, relieved smile – She was back to being her usual perplexing self, so he was glad that she was more or less alright. And if you looked at it from this perspective, it was almost adorable how she'd just automatically included him in some vaguely defined “we” she'd suddenly begun to talk about without ever asking him, or even herself if he'd taken any offense from the other two. (Which definitely wasn't the case).

 

Nonetheless, it seemed to indicate that she'd begun to accept him as a partner, comerade and brother-in-arms whom she was willing to imbue with a certain degree of her trust – He had absolutely no illusion that she could be looking at him as an equal just yet, but it _was_ a kind of success that she didn't treat him as being completely beneath her anymore, and as such, it lit a warm and fuzzy feeling beneath the reluctant boy's cheeks and filled him with a heady, humble little joy.

Illuminated by the evening light, there really _was_ something to looking up at the Second Child's trim silhouette as she gulped down her soda like it was part of some military regimen – the amber tones of sunset seemed to remove the coldness from her natural color palette, the exertions of the training had subtly intensified her natural scent, and as ridiculous as it might have looked, the silly leotard did not succeed in robbing her blossoming feminine curves of all their allure.

Everything about her boasted of vigor and vitality, like some kind of freshly bloomed exotic flower. Her actual build was more on the lighter side, though, if it wasn't for her confident posture and frequent expressions of dominance, the contrast between her light skin and strongly colored hair might have created the deceptive misconception that she could have used a protector.

So far, Shinji had perceived her as something unreachable and untouchable, an existence far superior to himself; He had not believed that she could possibly have any need for the likes of him, and in that sense, he'd though her to be fundamentally unlike him.

Perhaps that's how she _wanted_ to be seen.

But at least in battle, there _was_ something like a place at her side.

And Shinji would do his best to fill that place.

Despite their differences, he felt that he mustn't let her down, not with something that evidently meant so much to her.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _______________  
> 1\. Katayoku no Tenshi = roughly, 'One-winged Angel'. Feel free to shoot my unapologetically cliched ass.  
> 2\. With the odds of successful teamwork now significantly increased, the long-avaited confrontation draws nearer... 2.06: [The Place at Your Side]


	25. 06: [The Place At Her Side]

**06: [The Place at Your Side]**

 

**\---**

_Early morning, she wakes up_

_Knock, knock, knock on the door_

_It's time for makeup, perfect smile_

_It's you they're all waiting for_

_They go:  
_

_"Isn't she lovely, this Hollywood girl?"_ _  
_

_Lost in an image, in a dream_

_But there's no one there to wake her up_

_And the world is spinning, and she keeps on winning_

_But tell me, what happens when it stops?_

_They go:  
_

_"Isn't she lovely, this Hollywood girl?"_

_And they say:  
_

_She's so lucky, she's a star_

_But she cry, cry, cries in her lonely heart, thinking_

_'If there's nothing missing in my life_

_Then why do these tears come at night?'"_

_Lost in an image, in a dream_

_But there's no one there to wake her up_

_And the world is spinning, and she keeps on winning_

_But tell me, what happens when it stops?  
_

_-Britney Spears,’Lucky’_ _  
_

 

\---  
  
  


„The patient in room twelve? She's the little girl who got trapped under debris from the first battle. She's been here a long time...”

“Her injuries were pretty severe.”  
“And to think that she's just a grade schooler...”

“Did the boy come in again today?”

“Yes, he did. After all this time, he still visits her at least twice a week. He must be very fond of his little sister, what an exemplary big brother.”

“Boys of that kind are hard to find these days...”

  
  


Toujis smile disintegrated in the exact moment that he closed the door behind him. Little Sakura's lot in life was bad enough without any additional worries about his person, so he did his best to keep his composure, cite some entertaining trivialities from his week and relay some regards from their father. This time, he'd enthusiastically described the rather amusing sight of Shinji and Asuka in their leotards. 

Though it was hard to deny that it wasn't easy to keep up his smile in front of a sight that still broke his heart. 

After countless operations, the bones in her legs had been mended by liberal use of casts and screws, but it would likely take weeks of physical therapy before she'd be able to stand. 

Same for the use of her right arm. 

But even without any shattered bones to account for, the little girl would likely remain chained to her bed for the foreseeable future – The damage from her internal injuries and the blow to her head had not been that easy to fix, and Touji didn't feel like the amount of beeping screens and tubes in his sister's room had significantly decreased. 

And there was absolutely nothing he could do to help her – Every day he came here, he came face to face with his own impotence, and every time, he felt like he was coming closer to tearing out his hair.

Since their mother had died early on and their father was required to work to keep the family afloat, it had often become Touji's duty to look after Sakura, and, for example, help her with her homework or console her when she was sad. 

But when she had  _truly_ needed him to push her out of the way and take that chunk of debris in her stead, he hadn't been there. 

Frustrating.

The memories of the first battle, in turn, led his thoughts to the  _other_ reason of today's visit, a purpose for which the nearby pair of chatting nurses walking down the hallways would prove quite convenient:

“Excuse me, Miss, I have a question. About three days ago, there was this girl who's been found on the streets by a couple of boys. Did she, by any chance, get brought to this hospital?”

“Why do you ask? Do you know her?”

“Not exactly. I was one of the guys that found her. How is she?”

“Her injuries weren't as bad as they looked...”

“Thank goodness! Who was she? That is, if you're allowed to tell me.”

The nurse sighned. “At the moment, we can neither tell not refrain from telling you, we don't even know ourselves. She gave us a name, but there are no records of anyone like that, and she doesn't match the description of any missing person reports. It's as if she didn't exist until three days ago.”

“...can I visit?”

“I'm sorry, only next of kin.”

“Alright. I hope you find some of these sometime soon, so the poor thing doesn't have to be alone.”  
  
  


\---  
  


_Covered in bedsheets and bandages of sterile white, it took Yui a great effort to even move her head to the extent that she could see outside the window and catch a glimpse of the low-hanging cloudy skies._

_But even if she hadn't managed, she'd still have known that it had only just rained – she recognized the fresh, cleansed smell of the cool air pouring in through the window._

_The rain smelt just the same as it did back where her odyssey had started...the sky and it's whimsical weather had been the only constant on her long journey._

_“If you were here... what would you do... father?”_

 

\----

 

The final battle was set to take place in three days, and the time remaining to them was not getting any longer –

instead, it was steadily ticking away.

Neither of the two children felt like they could afford any more delays. Determined to pull through, they devoted all their attention to their task and, by extension, each other.

But even then, to precisely match another down to a heartbeat, to familiarize oneself with their motions and thought patterns to the point that you could predict them was no easy task, especially when you were as different from each other as Shinji and Asuka.

At least, they were not on their own:

In the light of their adjusted attitudes and newfound determination, Misato's strict regimen felt much less like a curse and more like a blessing.

It helped that the local hot springs penguin attempted to make up for the first day's debacle by offering moral support, be it by cheering, keeping them company or sometimes even participating in the exercises.

Unfortunately, he had to stay home for the parts of the training that were required to take place in NERV HQ. Particularly in the morning, Akagi would put the Children through countless iterations of the same simulation to practice for the fight. Training in the actual simulation bodies was particularly important in Shinji's case, as the choreography required him to have his Evangelion perform movements that lay beyond what he was capable of in his natural body.

According to the test data, he should technically have been able to do this since sometime last week as his synch rate had recently passed 100%, but he'd never done it with conscious intentions, which was exactly why he was supposed to practice it now – In fact, he managed to surprise the scientist by managing a successful handstand in the very first simulation, though his landing afterwards had not looked much more dignified than the results of the last battle – He ended up going through a great deal of struggle concerning the 'superhuman' movements, not because he couldn't do it, but having a hard time gauging, coordinating and precisely regulating their force without overshooting the margins.

Asuka, for whom everything required for the plan demanded about as much effort as a few simple jumps, protested that she was forced to waste precious time because of the 'Stupid Daddy's boy', but ended up giving him tips – Not, as Misato's teasing suggested, because she had somehow changed her opinion about him, but simply because she wanted him to stop getting on her nerves.

Shinji got the issue worked out on that very same day.

The instructions on the area of the roundhousekick should be particularly useful, and not only because Shinji could personally vouch for Asuka's skill in the area – the plan was to finish the angel off with a pair of simultaneous kicks intended to shatter both cores.

He'd guess that he was probably supposed to see it as a sort of honor to be introduced into this art by one of its masters – and her tips had turned out quite useful and intuitive in their application – but he didn't think that he'd ever be able to perform that move outside his Evangelion.

At least in that era, he would never be Asuka's equal – Though 'beating people up' wasn't exactly the kind of skill he'd always wanted to learn.

Though the simulation exercises ended around noon, the arrival of the afternoon did not imply a break. Oh no, that's exactly what Misato got those modified twister mats for.

To be honest, the Children still had the occasional inelegant moments, but Asuka was consoled by the knowledge that _her_ mistakes rarely ended with her rolling across the floor or landing flat on her face. Since Asuka appreciated this brightening of her mood, she showed her gratitude by helping Shinji find his way back to his own mat – usually with a good old Shikinamian roundhousekick.

But much more than the training itself, it was the corresponding everyday life that still created the most problems. In her endless quest to embarrass them, Misato had decided to boost the team spirit by buying them matching toothbrush mugs with their names on them. In hindsight, a larger sink might have been a more sound investment, as it might have prevented the kids from growling at each other each time there were some accidental sprays of water, which, given that they had to stand closely together, happened pretty often.

The evening's television program was another point of contention: They could neither agree on something to watch, nor were they very good at imitating each other's poses while they were pointing the remotes at the TV.

Their synchronization was fine up until the initial “Who watches this crap?” but there simply weren't that many insults that would apply equally to a soap opera and a cooking show.

The subsequent quarrels go so out of hand that Misato saw no choice but to place her own futon between those of her young wards to assure that they wouldn't smash each other's heads while she slept.

The next morning brought a small victory – after she'd made them sleep under the influence of the music intended for the attack plan, she'd found them in the exact same position.

Another indication that her efforts were ultimately bearing fruit was how the children's bio rhythms seemed to be adjusting to each other, which wasn't an entirely positive change given that the apartment had only a single toilet, leading to a distances where both children and the penguin who's faithfully supported them in their endeavors would embark on a three-way race for the toilet – It was probably enough to say that Shinji spent the rest of the day with the bathroom door's imprint on his face after Asuka had 'accidentally' slammed it into his face – somehow, both the redhead and the bird always managed to claim the porcelain throne before he did.

Despite these occasional unfortunate consequnces, Misato kept insisting that the three of them keep slurping their noodle soups at exactly the same time, though even her powers of persuasion were insufficient to convince Asuka to use 'those completely unpractical chopsticks', or at least, she'd given up when the girl's fervent speech about the inherent superiority of forks became too taxing on everybody else's eardrums.

Asuka kept her fork.

Annoyed by the whole incident, Misato actually made good on her earlier announcement to ensure that what little spare time the Children had left would be split evenly so that Shinji, who usually tended to back down in order to avoid further unpleasantness, for once received some help with the housework and even found some time to listen to his own music – which meant that Asuka was forced to take the other earbud and listen to his 'emo bullshit' as well.

Even so, he might have gotten more enjoyment out of his daily dose of musically underlined depressing poetry since Asuka had insisted that he keep his eyes closed as her underwear dried on a nearby clothesline.

This whole setup just made him nervous.

Participating in _Asuka's_ hobby's did not offer him too much comfort either. For one thing, he quickly reached the conclusion that all those girl magazines were either evil or incredibly boring, no in-between. Honestly, he really dindn't understand how it was any of Asuka's business if celebrity A was dating celebrity B or not, and he felt guilty just for reading it – it felt too much like prying, or gossiping behind someone's back, and that was... well, not nice. The fashion magazines were a little better as the models were easy on the eyes, but god help him if Asuka should catch his eyes drifting from the clothes themselves to the unclothed bits – even calling one of the ladies 'pretty' had landed him a slap.

Another thing Asuka liked to do was to play video games, but she only owned a single handheld game, which resulted in the ceremonial unpacking of her gaming console and its swift connection to the television.

Misato insisted that they try the multiplayer setting together, preferably as a team, but even if Asuka's game of choice was nothing extremly girl-specific, Shinji was soon forced to admit that he didn't have the slightest bit of talent.

But even Asuka couldn't really savor the activity, given that she was stuck with someone who was dead weight in co-op mode, and easy prey in a duel. At first, she relished stopping him into the ground, but it lost its interest rather quickly.

 

However...

...between the training and their spats, another kind of little moments began to slip in, scattered instants when Shinji felt like he was about to burn up from the inside, when time seemed to slow in brief seconds where his gaze lingered on Asuka's tauntingly perfect body longer than necessary, the times where their gazes would meet, when they'd accidentally brush against each other, or touch for some necessity of their constant company.

There was a warm, tingly consuming sense of desire that had somehow crept in through the backdoor before he'd even noticed.

Since that conversation in the evening sun, she had seemed more... tangible, like she actually existed in the same world as him, on the same plane of being, in the same number of dimensions. He became increasingly aware that she was still a girl his age, perfectly capable of being... vulnerable.

A girl his age, who, despite everything, was strong, brave, intelligent and attractive beyond all bounds...

So, what about that thing that commonly happened if you placed a healthy young male (presuming he wasn't asexual or exclusively interested in males) in proximity of a powerful, enviable and extremely attractive girl, when he was made to spend large amounts of time in her presence, exposed to her youthful breasts, her long, slender legs, her taunt behind, her shining, fire-red hair and her sweet scent?

What tended to take place if they were then made to share their highs and lows, and live through successes and failures, great strains and intense emotions side by side?

What tended to happen?

Well, at least in Shinji's case, it sparked the beginning of those miraculous processes which, until very recently, had been the sources of all life.

Before he knew it, Shinji found himself confronted with the situation that this person, whom he couldn't even stand until recently, caused him to feel _desire._

The new and strange feelings bubbled forth from some obscure, arcane source that was unknown to him, in a way he had never known before.

He pined and languished for the dream to take her perfect, flawless body into his arms, to cover her neck in kisses and rip the clothes off her body, to grasp for her breasts and feel their tips brushing against the palm of his hands, to feel her perfect legs between his own.

They had warned him of this in biology class, but they had never told him just how... _intense_ this need could be, how languorous its fever... but all of these were double-edges blades.

Precisely _because_ he was always stuck with her, he never found the time to seek relief through certain... solitary activities, and the very fact she was so intelligent, attractive and physically mature made it rather unlikely that she'd give an ineffectual loser such as himself as much as a passing consideration – She'd spurned the most muscular, wealthy and most popular boys their school had to offer, and set her standards so high that you'd have to be a James Bond knockoff with a face full of manly stubble to get as much as a passing consideration.

Shinji could think of many words with which to describe himself, but that list surely didn't contain anything like 'cool', 'charming' or 'bursting with testosterone', which turned each of Asuka's bold provocations, each and every of her motions in her barely clothed stage into a preview of hell and heaven at once.

In between all of her 'Are you an idiot?'s and 'You're such a loser!'s, she would throw in a certain degree of sexual provocations, simply because she loved being popular and relished in being seen as sexy and desirable, though she'd always clarify right during the flirtations themselves that she didn't even remotely consider him an option, and that he should consider himself fortunate for the chance to waste away in her orbit.

She taunted him with things she would never give him... and that almost led him to a kind of anger. Suddenly, all of her scoff and her mockery cut deeper than ever before, and he could no longer turn a blind eye to all the debasement humiliation she had visited upon him, losing the will to put up even the half-hearted resistance he'd managed thus far.

He'd begun to actually _care_ what she thought of him, and weakly hoped that he might get along with her, and be there for her when she needed him.

She, of course, did _not_ want this. She was merely holding back with her insults and physical beatings because she longed to excel in battle.

He was nothing but the means to an end, and slowly but surely, it was beginning to bother him.

One way or another, the days before the angel's return steadily approached their end, and by the time Misato declared the last of their training sessions to be over, the two EVA pilots had perfected their team work and synchronization down to the smallest detail.

 

\---

 

“So... see you then, Sakura-chan. I'll visit you again on Thursday, okay? I promise.”

Beyond the door to his sister's hospital room, Touji encountered the same nurse he'd spoken to earlier, not that the news she's brought had been all too encouraging.

She appeared to have been waiting for him to leave.

“By the way, Miss... What about the mysterious girl? Have you found her family? ...eh? _Disappeared?_ ”

“I'm afraid yes. We were going to hand her over to social services yesterday, but when we came to wake her up, her bed was empty and her window was smashed. It seems like she knotted her bedsheets and duvet cover together and used it like a rope to climb out. The police is already looking for her, but they haven't found her yet...”

 

\---

 

The last eve before the battle had been long-awaited, and yet it snuck up on them; The last three days, which to Shinji, had felt like three small eternities as he'd been living through them, in hindsight appeared like they'd just sped past him like a passing train, making it hard to believe that all that had taken place in so little time and through such a limited number of events.

A few rather fundamental things had changed irrevocably, and he too, had been changed, tortured and enriched by some wholly new experiences.

At times it had felt like this evening would never come, in part because the times preceding it seemed to have lasted long enough to give him a sense of being significantly older than before, but now, this moment had finally arrived, and it didn't even feel like it was anything special, and there was neither anticipation or tension in the air.

In and of itself, it was nothing more than a regular, relaxed evening, the infamous calm before the storm.

Since Misato had left for headquarters to attend to the last preparations for the battle, and Asuka was currently in the shower, Shinji had decided to use the brief moment of quiet to take it easy – If he hadn't sufficiently memorized the attack pattern by now, it would have been too late anyway, so he'd put on some loose, comfortable clothing and pulled out his cassette player in order to treat himself to some calm and pleasant music and take the time to read that one comic book that Touji had lent him a while ago.

When the end of his brief respite was announced by Asuka's steps, he kept his eyes closed as as wise precaution – given her tendency to run out of the shower wearing little more than a towel, it had proved to be a rather effective method of avoiding unecessary pain.

Indeed, the noises in the background suggested that she was about to get dressed.

“Where's Misato?” Asuka asked as she pulled her nightshirt over her head.

“At work. She just called to say the she won't be coming home.”

“Great! That means we have the place all to ourselves!”

Before Shinji's hormone-addled brain could convert that sentence and the seductive smile that accompanied it into a wild, steamy fantasy involving copulation, reality burst his bubble with a cold reminder that her choice, insofar as she had one, would always lead her _away_ from and not towards him – Only under duress did she even lower herself to breathe the same air as him, and once that coercion was gone, she immediately packed up her futon and carried it into the next room, where she closed the door with her foot without sparing him as much as a glance.

What else could being 'alone together' mean but freedom from the embarrassing circumstances necessitated by their training?

He'd barely removed his earbuds out of some hope that she might have something to say to him when the door had already been slammed shut before his eyes.

And to be honest, he didn't have the heart to remind her of the mandates of their training, he wasn't really keen of being stuck with her grumpy self next to him, and if he looked at himself, it was barely a mystery why someone like Asuka wouldn't want to stay in the same room as him – perhaps, she even thought that he, too, would be delighted to have a bit of privacy, after all, she couldn't have known what she would likely never find out.

 

Suddenly, the sliding door opened again.

Her loose-fitting, yellow nightshirt didn't do much to conceal her breasts, but her hostile tone efficiently assured that his glances didn't stay from her face.

“Consider this door as the invincible wall of Jericho!”

“Hm...?”

Shinji blinked in confusion.

What was that again? Some sort of western thing?

In any case, he couldn't remember ever hearing of any such thing, not that this would have been unusual.

Luckily (?), Asuka was 'compassionate' enough to deliver an explanation:

“That means, if you cross it, I will kill you!

So, and now be a good kid and go to bed. It's way past your bedtime!” and before she'd finished speaking, the door slammed shut once again – this time, for good.

He heard her complaining about how the Japanese could possibly stand to sleep on the floor, but then, the clicking of the light switch revealed that she had no plans to waste any more words on him.

To avoid her wrath, he put away the aforementioned comic book, turned off the light and decided that she was probably right as far as his bedtime was concerned.

Feeling rather depressed for a variety of reasons ranging from Asuka's disinterest to the writing he'd found in that alley three days ago, he decided to listen to some o his own music while falling asleep, since the steady repetitions of Track 27 reflected his mood rather well.

Beyond the windows, one could see the last light of the dying day, which no longer even bothered to disguise its impending end through the warm colors of sunset, but simply clad itself in a fallow blue that was about to fade into blackness at the furthest edge of the horizon, and in its fading glow, make out the reflective surfaces of Tokyo-3s skyscrapers, and observe how they, as well as their countless antennas, began to display the twinkling of those little red lights intended to warn and guide the flights of nocturnal planes and helicopters, showing them the path to safety like a lighthouse would out on the open sea.

Shinji wished that _he_ had something to show him the way – towards Rei, to Asuka, to humanity's salvation or even to his father...

Or the way to the answers to all of his questions.

He could really use some of those red lights to demarcate just how far he could go with each person without being rejected, and which areas to avoid so she wouldn't be hated. But he didn't have him, and so he was forced time and time again to enter the black spots on the map, where the Unknown dwelt... he couldn't stand this constant uncertainty in this big, confusing world, in which he was always surrounded by a large margin of emptiness, and all those who could have helped him were always far away.

The door turned the two or three meters that separated him from Asuka's place of rest into 'the next, enclosed room', and the words 'past your bedtime' made them a deep chasm.

Presumably, she lay somewhere over there, sleeping peacefully with no clue of the terribe power she could have over him without even knowing...

 

That said, there was also a lot that _Shinji_ didn't know, things he _couldn't_ have known, nor even suspected – For one thing, the distance between himself and the Second Child was only half as large as he'd thought: Still on all fours, the designated pilot of Unit Two remained on her knees next to the door, in the expectation that he would open it again, her thoughts quite removed fro what he would have expected them to be:

Just how stupid could he possibly be?

How much more obvious did she have to make it for this stupid idiot to finally get it? He hadn't exactly made it much of a secret that he was mostly governed by his 'little' brain, and it was not like a wuss like him could afford to be choosy with the ladies, so what was the matter with him?

What else could a boy of 14 years, the exact age where the hormonal urges should be doing their worst, possibly think of when he heard that they had 'the house to themselves' and an attractive girl right under his nose? What was the invincible Wall of Jericho famous for – if not the story in which it had come crashing down?

Wasn't it enough that she was parading herself around in mere towels or slutty nightshirts?

Did she have to shove her breasts right into his face for him to notice them?

Or did the legendary Third Child actually think he was too good for her, _him_ , that brainless, cowardly daddy's boy who didn't even have the guts to face her, always running off with his tail between his legs to avoid any possible confrontation?

How did that loser expect to ever get some if he kept acting like this? This was probably why she tended to get at least one love confession before lunch break, while he _didn't_.

 

Not that there was anything she wanted from those little boys – and he was the worst of them, the most immature of them all, nothing but a baby meekly following 'the plan' while clinging to the seams of Misato's skirt.

She wouldn't even be surprised if the pathetic wimp had a little bit of a crush on the older woman – how deluded, to think that an experienced, older woman would ever consider him anything other than a child.

(To think Kaji would ever consider _her_ anything else.)

Pah!

It wasn't as if she'd been seriously interested in charming that moron – if he'd actually barged in, she would have called him an idiot and escorted him out of the room with a kick, just for daring to think that she'd ever consider the likes of _him_.

(But wasn't it her who'd attempted to lure him here?)

She'd simply intended to use him as a guinea pig to practice the use of her womanly wiles before she'd attempt to seduce Kaji, just to try them out a bit. And it was only his status as an EVA pilot that made him eligible for that role, not that he'd had any appealing points that she'd be willing to waste herself on.

She belonged to the elite, so normal boys were about as distant from her as monkeys!

But even so, the only way the Third Child could possibly hold over her was as a _plaything_.

(To console herself after the defeat and the humiliation that had come with all this 'team work', to come to terms with the clear-as-crystal certainty that she hadn't been... good enough by anointing her wounds with a little bit of attention, recognition and affection.

To quieten her fears of inferiority by dominating the lengendary Third Child with her body, at least.

And it hadn't worked.

She'd been waiting here for at least fifteen minutes.

 _He wouldn't come._ )

Overcome with sorrow, Asuka lowered her head.

What was wrong with her, that she couldn't even tempt this horny nitwit even though he was quite obviously desperate?

If she couldn't even impress as hormonal teenager, how would she ever succeed with Kaji?

If she couldn't be NERVs best pilot, nor even an attractive adult woman, she'd be nothing but an useless child!

Everything... everything was working out without her being required or even needed for it... no one needed her, no one liked her, no one wanted her, no one admired her, no one would hold her, and no one ever, ever stayed with her!

Oh, how much she hated all this!

Everything and everyone here, this whole, damned country, she couldn't stand it, she hated it!

But what she hated the most was the useless, puny little child she had always-

No.

She couldn't allow herself to sink that low, she couldn't stand this pitiful display.

This was just unacceptable.

It was _him_. This was all _his_ fault!

That idiot!

How could he do this to her?

How could he spurn her so coldly?

There was no use in waiting for him, what more, she was _glad_ that he hadn't come.

Determined not to waste another single second of her life on the Third Child, she sank onto her futon.

The silent apartment failed to show any particular interest in that.

She tried to get herself into some semblance of a comfortable sleeping position, but it just wouldn't work, and in the end, all her efforts amounted to was to restlessly turn in her sheets, bringing her legs close together as if she wanted to provide herself the warmth and consolation that this cruel, unfair world was denying her.

But it was no use.

She simply couldn't sleep, nor could she seem to relax or manage to overlook the gaping black hole in her soul.

Only when she finally gave up on trying to keep her eyes shut and found herself eying the sky through a gap in the curtains did she fully grasp what was eating away at her attempts to rest, and, indeed, had driven her to her attempt at luring the Third Child to her side – It hadn't been about trying out her feminine allures, at least not completely...

It was just that this 'adult', rather indirect, implied strategy was the only way in which the last reminder of her precious pride would allow her to beg for absolution from her suffering.

 

For up there in the dark firmament, there was a lone airplane pursuing its path, visible only a blinking red dot illuminated only by its nighttime security lighting.

Ever since she'd been a child, when she'd decided to devote every last second of her life to her duties as an EVA pilot, she had been striving to be just like that plane: The fastest, most expensive, most impressive kind of vehicle that could master even the furthest distances without being slowed down by the constraints of terrain, unimpeded by the mountains or lakes that forced other means of transportation to turn, and so special that it didn't have to share the ground with lesser options like cars or trains, being privileged to shoot through the heights of the atmosphere that were reserved only for its kind.

She'd always been a high achiever, or at least, she'd done her best to be one.

Yet, there were far fewer planes than there were cars, trains or ships, and when one flew above the landscape, one tended to have the whole sky for oneself, impossible to inore for anyone with the time and capacity to gaze upward.

That, however, was precisely the issue – that lone plane up there might have had the sky to itself, but what exactly was the sky even? There was nothing up there but the air and the cold and the gaseous waters of the cloud cover.

Whenever an aircraft flew, it flew all alone, surrounded in all directions by nothing but gaping emptiness.

All alone?

Had she attempted to get the Third Child's attention because she'd felt _alone?_

Because she hadn't wanted to be alone and he'd been conveniently at hand?

Because she'd wanted a warm body to cling to to distract herself from her failures?

Disgusting! Pitiful! Unacceptable!

Asuka couldn't make sense of the world anymore.

“Up until now, it's been the most natural thing for me to be alone...” she explained to the shamelessly disinterested air molecules. “Loneliness... isn't supposed to bother me...”

 

\---

 

The Second Child wasn't the only person in this household who was having a hard time reaching a state of sleep – Even though Shinji knew that he would need to be well-rested for the big day tomorrow, it was simply not possible.

Even the music didn't help – he had far too many worries swimming around in his head, and they were not being helped by the additions of Asuka's rejection and the tensions regarding tomorrow's battle.

Then, suddenly, a noise.

It was a sliding door being opened – Asuka.

As if by some sort of reflex, Shinji immediately let his head and limbs sink down onto the sheets to feign a state of deep slumber – She'd told him to go to sleep, and the last thing he needed at a time like this was to incur her wrath this late at night.

Correspondingly, he didn't move a single millimeter as he heard her steps somewhere in the background – The only muscle he moved was the one needed to hit his cassette player's pause button, so he'd be able to hear what she was doing.

Only when he'd heard the squeaking of a door did he dare to peer past his eyelids – He didn't catch sight of Asuka, but the sounds he detected disclosed that her journey's destination had likely been the toilet.

Thus, Shinji decided that it would be for the best if he pretended to be asleep until she was back in her room, especially since he had no idea of the surprises that this night still held in store for him.

He definitely heard Asuka's steps as she was leaving the bathroom, but then, after what could not have been more than half the way back, they simply ceased.

Of course, there was always the possibility that Shinji could have misjudged the direction of the noise or overestimated the distance, but... he didn't think he'd heard the sound of the door.

He could have made an attempt to ascertain the situation with an upward glance, but he didn't want to risk her noticing that he was still awake in case she was still in the living room.

For lack of other options, he decided to wait it out – but the answer he had refrained from seeking ended up seeking _him_ out – quite literally.

Unbeknownst to Shinji, Asuka had spent a few moments looking down at him, conflicted and torn up by inner turmoil.

Then, he heard a definitive noise, along with a sudden sensation of warmth near his forehead, as he felt a touch that brushed against some of his hair.

Split seconds after he'd opened his eyes wide enough to realize what it all meant, they almost popped out of his skull.

The sight he was presented with drove a shock through his body and flooded the inside of his face with tremendous amounts of heat and blood.

As part of an instinctive flinch, his hand gripped the volume regulator attached to his headphones a little tighter, causing him to accidentally hit the rewind button, unleashing an ultra fast backwards version of his old familiar songs that was barely recognizable as music. It was a disquieting, disharmonious yet tolerable, screeching noise at the edge of Shinji's persception that vaguely conferred a sense of a time limit – He was far too busy with what his _eyes_ were showing him to pay much attention to his ears.

For when he'd opened the former, he found his entire field of vision full with Asuka.

The source of warmth he'd felr against his forehead had been nothing other than a _second_ forehead – to be exact, the one belonging to the Second Child.

She'd actually gone and planted herself in his bed, directly in his line of sight, her body aligned to his diagonal position, so that the distance between them remained consistently small – her long, slender legs were mere centimeters away from his own, as if they were only waiting for him to take the initiative and connect their forms until they were intertwined like a newlywed couple after their first night of passion.

All of Shinji's thoughts had been blown away, and all of what had once been his mind was completely paralyzed by the temptation supplied by his eyes, overloaded, conquered or everything at once.

He didn't even stop to consider what might have been right or wrong to do in this situation, what he 'should' have done or what the people closest to him might have thought of his actions. He did not even stop to wonder what just what in all of this immense, unfathomable universe could have led Asuka to do this.

For that, he would have needed to think in whole, coherent sentences, and that what not what he was doing.

He couldn't contain anything beyond this moment, as if nothing else had ever existed, and nothing else ever would, as if the Second Child were the only girl in the world, and the place at her side the only spot he had ever belonged in.

All he could think of was Asuka, all he could feel was the soft, warm skin of her forehead and the loving, mildly tickling caress of her hair, all he could smell was the fresh, fruity scent of her newly washed body, comprised of the perfume in her body lotions, her seductively-invigorating rosemary soap, the same strawberry shampoo he'd noticed after their first battle together, and another smell of her very own, and he could see nothing but her – That had been her intention, and that's what she had succeeded at.

Had there been other circumstances, or had this been another girl, he would have averted his eyes in shame by now, but here and now, he was overwhelmed, far too intoxicated by the prospect of his nocturne fantasies coming true.

Too long, too strongly, he'd been yearning for what Asuka had teased him with but never let him reach, and he was too infuriated by her constant humiliations and insults to think about her privacy right now – He was not that noble a person.

He knew that he ought to respect her basic human dignity like she'd never respected his, but right now, he couldn't _feel_ that responsibility.

The Third Child was only a flawed human being, and in the middle of puberty at that.

He knew that he should be ashamed of himself, that what he was doing was low, cowardly and scurrilous, but in this instant, he refused to care – Here was the chance he had been hoping for... after all, it was _her_ who had pretty much shoved her breasts in his face, offering herself on a platter like a common prostitute!

He felt the blossoming desire to take revenge for her scorn, to take her when she couldn't refuse him.

But most of all, he sought to prove to both himself and her that he wasn't the coward they both thought he was, that he could be a man and take the first step.

In some ways, he still couldn't help but admire Asuka beyond all bounds, simply because she was everything he wasn't: She was pretty, she was strong, she was proud and she was popular, graceful as she said and did exactly what she wanted. She took what she wanted.

She seemed to be much more open and confident with her sexuality than he would ever be, and he wanted to understand that.

To understand what it was that made her strong and what it was that made her weak, so he could find such a source of strength for himself.

In this moment, he lusted for her as much as he hated himself, for having all the things he found lacking in himself.

He was consumed by the burning craving to lick that strength of hers from her lips and skin.

So he stared, brazenly, without shame or apology, directly a her sleeping body, her soft red hair, the large amounts of fair flesh and flawless, well-kept skin that her loose garment revealed, her bare shoulder and her breasts, soft, light yet defined hills of bared while flesh which poured out of her nightgown light water balloons, the nipples barely covered and pressing through the fabric anyways.

They especially captured his wide open eyes, as if he still couldn't believe that they could be both real and this close at the same time.

Her bosom was squeezed just a little further from her nightclothes as she stirred slightly, but the main effect of her minuscule motion was to bring Shinji even closer to her face than he thought possible even just a moment ago, her lips slightly parted like an invitation that Shinji would not decline.

He _wanted_ her.

Hastened by the sound of the rewinding player, Shinji reached something like a decision, insofar as his mental and emotional state allowed such a thing. 'Something like' because his next action wasn't anything he could have explained or defended with logical arguments but still deserving of the term 'decision' because he was, at that point, willing to carry it out without further thought or hesitation, or hopes of turning back.

Unceasing, he moved toward her soft, alluring lips, until they were all he could see, until they encompassed everything that was part of his world, her lips alone, as they slowly opened to welcome him–

No. _Not_ to welcome him.

“Mh...ma... Mama...”

The cassette player reached the end of the tape and fell silent.

On the edges of Asuka's eyes, there was a gathering of liquid, the one chemical that could make any kind of lust evaporate at once.

Glittering little tears, matching her childlike little voice.

Shinji came to a petrified halt stopped less than nail's breath from Asuka's fate.

He felt like he'd been thrown into a pool of ice cold water.

It just wasn't fair.

He'd wanted to steal a kiss the superior, provocative young woman whose strength he'd been jealous of, not from some sobbing little girl that cried because she was missing her Mommy back home in Germany!

To put it bluntly, the young EVA pilot felt conned.

That arrogant little...!

She acted like she was all _mature_ when she was no better than him!

He should have known.

Why did he even do this whole, pointless thing?

Frustrated, he grabbed his blanket and curled up beneath it, hidden away on the other end of the room, as far away from Asuka as possible.

“You're still a child yourself.” he mumbled, almost contemptuously, before pulling the blanket over his head and trying his best to forget this entire incident.

 

\----

 

A torrent of folders and papers kissed the floor.

He squeezed his right leg between both of hers, and, all-too enabled by her short skirt, rubbed his thigh against her panties with a kind of practiced professionalism, using his left arm to squeeze her against his chest while his right held her trembling hand.

“Cut it out! What if someone sees...!”

“Like who?”

“You know, _someone_...”

Before she had the chance to say anything else, he'd already sealed her lips and shifted her weight against the wall, where her resistance finally melted completely and allowed his tongue to pass the gateway of her lips.

He demanded a long, intimate kiss, and all the time, the guilty, sullied glance of her eyes was transfixed on the counter that told her how many floors the elevator had left to pass.

Only when its doors opened did Kaji release Misato from the firm grasp of her arms, whereupon she departed in a firm stride, bringing a full meter of space between them before she thought of turning back around.

“Don't do this _ever_ again. It's over between us.”

“That's odd...” Kaji retorted, as he gathered up the papers that Misato had dropped when his sudden 'offense' had surprised her. “Suddenly, your lips are saying 'no', even though they were saying 'yes' just now. So whom shall I believe? Your words or your lips?”

With his usual pompous smirk, he handed her the papers, and then had the audacity to actually bow to her.

But even so, the emotion displayed upon Misato's face was not anger or indignation, but _guilt_.

She'd felt guilty and dirty... because just for a moment, she had _enjoyed this_.

No.

No she hadn't. Most certainly not!

Why should she even, with _that_ self-important macho?

As far as she was concerned, he could stick his mucilaginous gentleman shtick where the sun don't shine! He could even have the papers back – right in the face, zing!

To this day, the poor, innocent elevator doors behind which Kaji had disappeared stilll wondered what they might have done to deserve the load of paper that isato had angrily thrown their way.

 

\----

 

“Here, for you.”

“Oh, Thank you.”

Thanks to the coffee that her faithful friend had kindly provided her, Misato actually managed a grateful smile despite all the frustrations concerning both Kaji and the bickering kids.

“I admit, it's a bit unusual to see you sober.” Ritsuko commented as she sat down next to her friend, on one of the large tables next to the wide panorama windows of the canteen.

“Is it because of work... or because of a man?”

“There are many reasons.”

“Still in love, hm?”

Misato, who had been sipping her caffeinated beverage at the time, barely managed not to choke. “What? Is that supposed to be funny?!” she retorted once she was done coughing. “I miss that guy like I miss a hole in the head. He was the worst mistake of my life! My only excuse for having been with him at all is that I was young and stupid.”

“You know, actually...” Ritsuko started, still surprisingly calm. “I meant to say that _Kaji_ is still in love. But evidently, the same is true for you.”

“Oh, shut up...” Misato griped grumpily.

“If I'm wrong, then why are you getting so worked up? Just give him a chance. Who knows, maybe he was _also_ young and stupid eight years ago.”

“That might make sense if he had changed in any way, but he's exactly the same! He simply refuses to grow up.”

“Look who's talking.” Ritsuko commented. “Last week, when he did your job for you and thought of a battle strategy, you still though it was cute. I don't want to meddle in your private life, but don't you think it's a bit unfair if you only refuse him when it's not inconvenient for you?

That sounds a bit like you're taking advantage of him.”

“It's not like I asked him to do that! _He's_ the one who can't get it into his head that somone might not want to have anything to do with him. He still acts like he's the center of the universe. But let's just let this topic be, okay? We have a lot of work to do. Tomorrow is the big day.”

 

\----

 

And the big day _did_ come.

Exactly as predicted, the Angel resumed his march toward Tokyo-3, stomping through the landscape as the morning sun illuminated its partially metallic body.

But Israphael wasn't the only one who'd spent the last week preparing for a rematch with the humans – they, too, were thoroughly prepared, having prepared their counterstrike down to the smallest detail.

“It's coming!” Misato informed both of her wards. “We won't lose this time! Deploy your AT fields as soon as the music starts, and then do everything just how we practiced it!”

“Roger!” both Children confirmed in unison.

Whatever may have happened the night before, Shinji considered it to be wholly his own fault once he'd looked back at it in the morning light – He'd pulled some absolute nonsense there, and even he could no longer understand just what had driven him to do that.

He stayed at the conclusion that Asuka was not much better than him, but at the same time, it wasn't like he was so much better than her, and now, it was time for the fight.

Before them lay yet another battle for the fate of humanity, so his own chagrin (or lack thereof) could wait.

Deathly serious as always when he was mentally preparing for a battle, he went through the sequence of moves one last time before his mind's eyes, and felt deeply inside the EVA's mindscape to make sure that his connection with it was of sufficient strenght.

This would be the moment of truth – In a few moments, it would be decided if he could keep up with Asuka or not.

“Don't forget that we're supposed to go for maximum output and velocity from the very beginning.” Asuka reminded him, her anticipation at this chance to finally prove herself apparent in her voice.

“I know.” Shinji confirmed. “We'll finish this in 62 seconds.”

(Though Asuka would never admit this, he always sounded significantly cooler once he got inside his EVA.)

 

Finally, they both heart Aoba reporting that the angel had passed the point they had discussed earlier – The moment had come.

Misato's last instruction was for the power plugs to be divulsed – this operation would require maximal freedom of movement – and then, she gave the launch order.

Music, go!

Evangelions, likewise, go!

With the elegance of professional ballerinas, they shot out of the ground and immediately used their momentum to jump multiple times their own height – all of that in perfect unison.

Together, they threw two retractable staffs, between which an electromagnetic force field formed immediately upon their landing, neatly bisecting the angel.

Like before, it's reaction to this was to split into its two miniature forms, whose size roughly matched the Evangelions – The EVAs themselves landed on the floor smoothly and whirled back to their feet in a kind of one-fourths pirouette, in order to grip the guns hat had been prepared and handed to them through the hidden armories in some nearby buildings – This was a point where the timing was particularly important as the gunfire was only meant to draw the angel's attention.

Striding forward with graceful sideways steps, both pilots aimed for the angel and emptied their magazines into it, both showing clear signs of strain or excitement.

Their painstakingly prepared reaction to the retaliatory cross beams resembled less a regular evasive maneuvers than it a kind of deathly gymnastics jumping course, given that it consisted mostly of a series of synchronous handstands – Shinji was surprised that he even managed it, but it was surprisingly easy, almost as if his imagination were the only real limit on his freedom of movement.

He even managed to maintain synchronicity with the Second Child as he did it and landed precisely on the white chalk outlines that demarcated where exactly the Evangelion's feet were supposed to go – which, in turn, activated the steel plates intended to keep the angel's next shot from reaching them, giving them time to grab another pair of guns to continue shooting at the angel – it, however, seemed to have realized that it wouldn't be getting very far with its regular energy beams and decided to go all-out, causing something like a halo to appear over each of its halves, both of them connected in the shape of a sideways eight.

Shinji had seen something like this before – with the very first angel he had fought.

And just like it, the two smaller figures began to levitate the very moment the rings of light appeared, landing directly in front of the steel plates before tearing them asunder with their claws – Both Evangelions had evaded their assault with a simultaneous jump at this point.

 

While the few bombs and rockets that Misato had fired at it distracted the angel however briefly, the Children prepared the decisive strike. Moving like the halves of a single body, both of their battle cries melted into one, and even without having to sit inside the same EVA or any other physical connection, the pilots could feel that they shared exactly the same will.

And then came the part where Shinji got to show off everything he learned from her – the part where they both rained down from the heavens to give one half of the angel the kick of its lifetime – 'kick of it's lifetime' because the next one was supposed to be lethal.

As the angel, now back in a single form, was being propelled across the landscape by the momentum of their assault, incapable of stopping itself or otherwise escaping its fate, a pointed glance passed between the pilots, blue-into-blue, Shinji, serious and cautious, looking to assure himself of her support, and Asuka, ecstatic and joyous in her triumph, ascertaining to him with a nod that he would have her full trust for what was to come –

And then, they delivered the coup-de-grace.

Spinning like dancing swans, they shot upwards into the sky, only to descend like bloodthirsty Valkyries, determined to strike the angel''s cores before they could dive back inside its greenish-black flesh.

Arranging their Evangelions into a giant letter 'Y' without them touching each other, the unlikely pair sealed the angel's fate. Euphoria flooded the command center before their blow even connected, Misato's playful smirk brimming with pride for her young wards, Kaji with a triumphant grin, Maya jubilant, Hyuuga in awe, Aoba appearing genuinely surprised and astonished before his features settled into a thin, content smile, and even Ritsuko, usually the designated cynic, couldn't find a reason not to smile. Nay, even the usually rather serious subcommander, who had so scolded the pair just a week before was swept up in the wave of faith and rejoicing.

And for good reason – Israphael never had a chance. Its cores splintered from the force of the initial impact, and the more the force of the attack led it to slide up and down the mountains, the more the cracks deepened, until they finally broke to pieces at the exact same moment, bursting into a bloodlike liquid that splattered both EVAs only to be burnt right off their armor when the angel's remaining body exploded as well, wiping the small hill upon which it had expired of the maps in the firestorm that doubled as the messenger's funeral pyre.

This was followed by the usual cross-shaped light beam, the rain of blood, a double rainbow – even triple at the edges – and a crater that had been molten deep into the ground that would likely become a new lake with time.

“What about the EVAs?” Misato asked, curtly.

“No damage.” Maya reported.

Indeed, the explosion's fading light eventually gave way to reveal the two colossal shapes – one had to look closely to make them out as everything inside the crater was splattered with the angel's sticky, crimson remains, but they were there – Mission accomplished.

An all-around success then?

Not necessarily.

Once you made out the EVA's outlines within the burned-out sludge, it was impossible to miss how their bodies were hopelessly tangled – Misato and Ritsuko immediately recognized what was now inevitable.

“Oh noes!” the former commented, indulging in a generous facepalm.

The scientist extended her her full sympathies. “Any moment now...”

 

As soon as Shinji had climbed out of his entry plug to get a good look at the results of the battle, the internal line rang out and presented him with an adorable hologram of a rather cantankerous Asuka.

“Look what you've done! This is the second time I looked uncool _because of you!_ ”

“How is this my fault?” Shinji protested angrily. By all respect and so on, how could she make a fuss about something like _that_ after they'd succeeded at taking that thing out without damages or injuries? She couldn't be serious!

She really _was_ a total toddler! Granted, there were some things about her that he found impressive, even intimidating, but in moments like these, Shinji felt like he'd been sent out here to babysit her.

“ _You're_ the one who ran into me from behind!” he added, in order to at least clarify the facts.

“Only because _you_ lost track of the timing!” came her caustic retort.

Beyond the semi-transluscent hologram, he could see her real body in the distance, gesturing just as wildly near the hatch of her entry plug as the virtual image of her that was currently screaming in his ears. “Are you always this lame, or is it because you stayed up so long yesterday?”

She... had noticed?

“I was making sure that I's memorized the right steps!”

“Liar! I bet you tried to kiss me in my sleep!”

She's noticed _that_ , too?

Struck with sudden despair, Shinji swallowed.

“It's not fair to pretend to be sleeping!” he replied, sounding a little lost.

“You PERVERT! That was supposed to be a joke! Then you really did it? You dared to ruin my first kiss for me, after I'd saved myself for Kaji-san all this time...”

“NO! I stopped!”

“Who'd believe a pervert like you?!”

“ _You're_ the one who crawled into bed with me in the first place!”

 

It was probably hardly worth mentioning that the whole control room had long since dissolved into homeric laughter.

Resigned, Fuyutsuki once again buried his face in his right palm.

“They're embarrassing us _again...”_

As of late, the subcomander was losing all hope for Ikari's son.

 

\----

 

Much to the chagrin of all involved NERV employees, the Children continued to argue all the way through the retrieval mission and their transport back home, and even Misato couldn't manage to shut them up for long.

By the time they made it to the shower rooms, Asuka seemed to have lost the interest in further arguing – perhaps she had simply ran out of insults, though it may also have been related to the familiar face that had greeted them in the corridors, joining them in a white plugsuit dripping with LCL.

“Hello, Ayanami!” Shinji greeted with a friendly smile. “It's good to see you again!”

“Is it?” she answered, mildly surprised.

“Well, uhm, I... I can't think of a reason why it wouldn't be, since we haven't seen you in a long time. We'll be back in school tomorrow, though, just so you know.”

“Good. Then you destroyed the target?”

“ _Of course_ we did!” Asuka interjected, sounding mildly indignant. “Do you really think you're so important that we wouldn't manage without you and your garbage can of a prototype? Really! Unlike you and this amateur over here, I'm not here because I had any sort of convenient contacts, but because I'm _good_. You can rest assured that some puny enemy won't be a problem for me! Granted, Daddy's boy over here helped me out, but it's faily obvious whose accomplishment this victory was! But hey, ” Asuka flashed her a condescending grin. “I can hardly blame an antisocial girl like you for asking a stupid question so that people will task to you at all. Must have been boring to sit around in your half-repaired EVA without anything to do!”

“...hey, Shikinami-san...” Shinji feebly tried to intervene. “I don't think Ayanami meant to-”

“Can you two please chat some other time?” she interrupted him immediately. “I'd rather wash the LCL out of my hair before it dries, if you please. If you don't move your bachsides soon, I'm leaving without you!”

 

Now that the number of pilots being employed here had increased to three, the shower room actually looked like it was being used – If they all picked the same side of the room, the number of the cabins in use exceeded that of the empty ones by one – but what could have made the room more lively and pleasant merely succeeded in making shower time more stressful, as Asuka had threatened Shinji with the Death penalty multiple times in case he should leave his cabin before she was done getting dressed, after all 'she knew full well what sort of pervert he was'.

Technically, the cabin doors covered everything apart from her head, shanks and feet, which she normally presented to the world quite freely... and even then, there was very little about her that Shinji hadn't seen yet.

But due to his rather understandable aversion to pain, Shinji decided to keep these objections to himself and simply waited until she would 'let him out'.

Since she insisted on applying a generous regimen of of beauty products, this meant that Rei was the first to finish and emerge from her stall.

“See you later.” she stated once she'd put on her school uniform and quietly walked toward the door.

 

Asuka took a good while longer, sat down on the central bench in the room and pulled out a hand mirror and a few jars of cream and makeup as she got to work on her face.

“You can leave, Daddy's Boy.” she informed him after a while, after she'd taken her sweet time to assemble her 'beauty station', as if she'd only then remembered that Shinji existed and had probably spent over fifteen minuted standing fully clothed in his shower cabin at this point, where some leftover water had dripped onto his blue polo shirt and his hair had begun to dry in odd, standity-uppity angles before encountering a comb.

“...Uhm, Shikinami-san...”

“It's alright, you don't need to wait for me.”

“I just... wanted to...”

Asuka sighed. “You Japanese are going to drive me crazy! Listen, if you've got something to say, spit it out now or leave me in peace!”

“I just ….wanted to apologize. ...In case I... got in the way somehow... “ he finally managed. Despite everything else, he'd seen just how important battle performance could be to Asuka.

“Don't worry about it. You weren't nearly as useless as I feared you would be. I must have rubbed off on you during training.”

“T-thank you.”

“Spare me the formalities and just get out of my sight!”

 

In part because of that order, she didn't get to see the noticeable blush that her compliment... or rather, her marked abstaining from using a _stronger_ insult had caused on the shy boys's face.

Rather than pay attention to his steps as he left the room, she focused on the freshly beautified, seemingly perfect girl in her mirror.

Her smile seemed to have gone, but that was simply an unimportant external detail. Reflections couldn't ask questions, nor could they feel ashamed of weaknesses – The other girl, trapped all alone within the mirror, could not have met anyone else within her cage of glass, nor could she have called for help because she was mute –

Every time she appeared to speak, the only voice Asuka could seem to hear was her own.

She'd once heard her stepmother in conversation with her father, stating that mirrors did not merely reflect evil or imperfections, but that they outright _created_ them, but the image that Asuka held in her hand didn't seem to have any flaws at all... If either her real mother or her stepmother had been given the choice, they probably would have opted for the silent girl in the mirror.

 

Even so, she was capable of flipping the mirror shut and packing it away. What did it matter to her what any of these women thought?

She did not want to be a silent reflection or a mute little doll, no matter how perfect that might supposedly make her.

She didn't have to be ashamed of having worked with the Third Child (or so she convinced herself), all things considered, he hadn't exactly been useful, nor would she _want_ him to rival her level, to be honest. She was NERV's best pilot, and she intended to _keep_ that position.

Besides, he was probably the lesser of two evils compared with the arrogant, antisocial cow that was the First Child.

And as much as she'd chided him, on some level it was actually quite flattering to be desired. Turns out that all her worries had been for nothing – _Of course_ she could wrap a guy like him around her fingers. She just had to make sure to drop hints the size of sky scrapers with this guy.

Even if he _was_ an idiot, she could probably manage to tolerate him for a while, and somehow, somewhere... well yes, though she would never have admitted it, somewhere deep inside she didn't find it all that unwelcome to have someone standing at her side during battle.

 

_______________

  1. Regarding the whole first name basis thing, there was a decision to be made, as this chapter would have been one of the logical points to insert it – One the one hand, the fact that they refer to each other by their first names is an iconic and important part of Shinji's & Asuka's relationship that actually fits quite well with the direction I eventually want to take them in, on the other, if I made her drop the 'Daddy's boy' thing now, it would barely have any presence and come off as part of the introductory process, and its importance would be lost – after all, she keeps doing it for a full third of 2.0, and underlines the fact that Asuka often relates to those around her as 2-dimensional roles in her personal script without even getting to know it, just like she calls Rei's 'Favorite/honor student/wondergirl' , manga-Kaworu 'replacement' and was to do the same with Mari in some unused scenes, how she and Rei never use each other's names (each for different reasons that nonetheless underline their imcompatibility) basically deciding that Shinji will be her rival without consulting him – when she used his name midway through 2.0, it meant that she saw him as a person and an equal, a point that should feel 'earned' when it eventually arrives, given the turbulent nature of their relationship. I was reminded of reading that bit in the 2.0 CR where Anno chose to downplay Asuka's connection with Hikari and scrap the Kaji thing to not dillute the more important point that she came to Japan on her own – Of course I'm working with a medium very different from feature films that are characterized by a spaciousness rather than a conciseness of time, so they'll remain at 'Daddy's boy' and 'Shikinami-san' for the forseeable future.

  2. The Hijinks will continue in 07: [Worthy of Her]

  3. It has come to my attention that this fic is mentioned & linked on the TV tropes page for “Groundhog Peggy Sue”. *sparkly sailor moon eyes* _“Thank you”._




 


	26. 07: [Worthy of Her]

**08: [Worthy of Her]**

 

**\---**

 

_**There's only two types of people in the world** _

_The ones that entertain_

_And the ones that observe_

_Well baby I'm a put-on-a-show kinda girl_

_Don't like the backseat, gotta be first (oh, oh)_

_I'm like the ringleader_

_I call the shots (call the shots)_

_I'm like a firecracker_

_I make it hot (make it hot)_

_When I put on a show  
_

**_[…]_ ** _  
_

**_There's only two types of guys out there,_ **

_Ones that can hang with me_

_and ones that are scared_

_So baby I hope that you came prepared_

_I run a tight ship, so beware_

_I'm like a ring leader, I call the shots._

_I'm like a fire cracker,_

_I make it hot when I put on a show.  
_

**_I feel the adrenaline moving through my veins_ **

_Spotlight on me and I'm ready to break_

_I'm like a performer, the dancefloor is my stage_

_Better be ready, hope that ya feel the same  
_

**_All the eyes on me in the center of the ring_ **

_Just like a circus_

_When I crack that whip, everybody gonna trip_

_Just like a circus_

_Don't stand there watching me, follow me_

_Show me what you can do_

_Everybody let go, we can make a dancefloor_

_Just like a circus  
_

_  
_

**_**-Britney Spears, ‘Circus’** _ **

 

\---  
  
  


“ _The world is wrong.”_

That single, simple sentence kept on haunting him everywhere he went. He found it in all possible and impossible places, scribbled on blackboards, walls, street signs, advertisement brochures, just wherever he looked.

By its very nature this kind of situation would have been easily and naturally to dismiss as mere coincidence, but the bloody writing in that alleyway and the very real, cool metal badge he'd picked up kept reminding him that there was more at work here than his dreams or his imagination.

Many times, he caught himself wishing that he'd thrown that thing away and fled the scene without looking back. Did he still prefer ambiguity to certainty? 

Did he still hesitate to slam shut the doors on certain possibilities?

That was probably true.

What a damned coward he turned out to be. 

Even a blind man should have been able to tell that these encounters had been real.

And if he still doubted, the tale he'd heard from Touji, Kensuke and Nagato should have convinced him, at the very least once they mentioned just where they'd met the mysterious girl they'd spoken of – that was when he'd been certain that it  _had_ to be Yui – If he'd known of this before, he might have sought her out for answers at the hospital, but now, her location was unknown again, though she was probably spending a lot of time smearing “The world is wrong” onto all possible places as if she wanted to make it a trend among graffiti artists, probably with the intention that each and every one of her messages would reinforce the warning that still loomed over him like a menacing shadow:

“ _Even if there are some very, very happy days waiting ahead of you, I lament to tell you, but... it will not last. The home you built for yourself, your friends, the people you love... none of it will last. Indeed... there might come a day on which you feel like your world is coming apart all around you, without you being able to do anything about it._ _”_  
  
  


Like the world is coming apart? Thus far, that didn't seem to be the case – if anything, things seemed to be getting better, slowly but surely, slightly but steadily...

Even so, he felt the images of despair bubbling up from that forbidden part of himself, from behind the heavy gates that only fully opened in the state of dreaming, as he floated in the realm between being and nothingness – He saw Asuka, her once infuriatingly perfect face contorted by wrath and despair. He saw gestures and words of rejection. 

“Behold, the invincible Shinji-sama!”

Then, with the destructive brightness of the sun and sudden might of a lightning strike, an image of a shattered entry plug.

The shamed form of an comrade, sometimes crippled, sometimes dead, sometimes,  _worse_ . 

A dark and indifferent silhouette, walking away into the distance – in itself, an old and familiar source of pain, except that the dark silhouette now turned and extended his hand toward him, of course, only to withdraw it just as he dared to believe what he had seen, before he could extend his own shaky little hand in kind. 

A gunshot, a loss, a deluge of tears and impotence.

Impotence, truckloads thereof. Asuka, screaming in agony.

A feeble, unsucessful attempt to comfort her that was met only with cold, sharp words of rejection.

He couldn't save Rei, either. She took the whole town with her as she transformed into light, heat and fire, right before his very eyes. The only thing remaining was that which she had attempted to save, the person least deserving of being saved. 

The radiance of the incandescent flames scattering away into the sky, leaving only ruins and scorched earth. 

They hadn't even bothered to rebuild it, much like he hadn't bothered with any active attempts to keep on living. 

Warm, sticky blood clinging to his palm, followed by a symphony that told of the deepest depths of despair and the highest heights of ecstasy that escalated into a single vortex made of love and hate, hope and death, violence and endless agony, and it came upon him like a storm of fire. 

Corpses, Corpses everywhere... 

An infernal spectacle begun by a simple wish, a thought so alien and distorted that it was hard to believe that it had originated from the mind of a human being:

“ _Nobody needs me, so they can all just die.”_

“ _It makes no difference if I'm here or not, nobody cares about me, so I might as well die, too.”_

But the most frightening thing of all was: This stranger, this... creature, this broken twisted shell of a human being... spoke with his own voice. 

  
  


And then, everything was over, no more pain, no more suffering, no more pressure nor agonizing thoughts, only cold air and the blackness of a starry sky. A sudden, heady feeling of freedom. 

Shinji stretched out his arms and breathed in.

Thirteen white Evangelions had been rammed into the ground like nails, only the fourteenth formed a green and violet cross; Apart from that, there was no difference to the others, even the neon-bright EVA was heavily damaged and petrified.

In death, they were all the same – Even the gods. 

This time, the red streak in the sky was missing, but whatever would have otherwise formed it now colored the massive dark hole that now gaped in the fallow moon-disc, so that it resembled the encrusted, blackish-brown blood drying around a wound, a hole torn in the pallid skin of a decaying corpse. 

This whole place smelt of decay.

If he hadn't known that smells could not possibly cross the blackness of space, he would think that the stench was coming from that dead moon. 

Upon a closer look, he determined that this world of death  _did_ have a ring after all, but rather than red, it was gray, and barely distinguishable from the void beyond.

He understood that it had to be the lost flesh of the gutted satellite. 

The hole was very deep; 

In the dark maw's center, one could see stars sparkling through from the other side. 

But where did the stink come from?

The boy was appalled at just how casual that question had sounded in his head. 

He received his answer in the guise of lapping waves, when he attempted to turn around to gaze upon the other side of the sky. 

The red ocean of Shinji's days had often been called a 'dead sea' possessed of an 'abominable stench', but what he saw before him now that was wholly, completely and irrevocably dead. 

The stinking slag that surrounded him knuckle-deep had an opaque, milky-white if not slightly green color, an repugnant substance of uneven density as if the sea itself were rotting. 

The great unification had taken place, the walls of the heart had been torn down, but there had been no new creation, no rebirth, not even a stagnant continuation.

Instead, everything had just died.

Every single organic macromolecule on this planet had dissolved, every last drop of the essence of life had gone spoiled, its had source run dry forever.

Everything had been irrevocably consigned to nothingness.

All around him was nothing, no more expectations, no more duties, no more fear, just endless, unlimited freedom.

Shinji might as well have been the last living thing in the entire goddamn universe.

Why?

He looked around nonchalantly, almost blissful, led by nothing more than simple curiosity.

Why was he still here?

Why had he ever been here in the first place?

And the he saw it, for the first time in this particular dream, the head of a gigantic female corpse, cleaved in half and still large as a mountain, accusingly staring at him with its dead, burst-open eyes. 

Her features were somehow familiar, but before he could place them, the titanic face morphed into a replica of one Shikinami Asuka Langley. 

“Are you an idiot? What you asking this stupid question for? You know perfectly well that you would never have the guts to do us all a favor end end your own pitiful existence, you goddamned _coward!_ ”

  
  


\----  
  


_As Shinji awoke with a start, his eyes flying open in an instant, he found his hands firmly clawed into his bedsheets and the rest of his body flooded with ice cold sweat._

_His hair and clothes stuck to his drenched, clammy skin, his bedsheets were a chaotic messs and his blanket was crumpled on the floor right next to his bed._

_Needless to say, his heart was still pounding like a war drum, and his breathing was only now beginning to normalize._

_This had been unspeakably awful, even by the standards of these dreams._

_Even now, he could have sworn that that omnipresent stench of putrefaction was still loded in his nostrils._

_Again and again, that stranger's words reverberated throughout his thoughts, showing no ostensible intention to let him go just because he'd woken up._

_He was going to fail. Everything was going to die, everyone he'd ever known... It was real, just like that girl had been real, just like the badge on his nightstand was real though he was still afraid to look upon it._

_On the one hand, he felt a desire to curl up in fetal position and refuse to move until the end of days finally arrived, but he couldn't seem to muster the strength to even do that, so he did what he usually did when everything became too much for him and the energy to anything about it eluded him:_

_He stared at the ceiling._

_For the rest of this week, the EVA pilot had been forced to acquaint himself with yet another unfamiliar ceiling – Asuka had kept the bigger room._

_There had not even been a discussion, unless you counted her mocking assertions about how he was a whiny dunce for complaining, should stop looking at her like that and accept that the better pilot was bound to receive the larger room._

_Though while he certainly didn't appreciate being uprooted from his old familiar spot of calm, he did understand that Asuka had brought a great amount of material possessions with her and needed the space to store them more than he did. And besides, he was supposed to be trying to get along with her... or at least, avoid more confrontations he'd be bound to lose._

_The smaller room had served as a storeroom so far and was therefore 'just the right thing for an obsolete slump with about as much charisma as an old mop', as Asuka had put it._

_Unlike his former abode, it had wooden pillars supporting the walls and a distinctly brighter lamp he'd since gotten used to._

_But even the ambitious little light bulb, which evidently wanted to be a floodlight when it grew up, didn't manage to counteract the cave-like quality of the room's dark wallpapers and heavy, wooden furniture._

_Shinji didn't mind terribly much – A gloomy, enclosed refuge was exactly what he needed whenever he felt like hiding away from the world._

_Only the carpet would take some getting used to – its colors were far too shrill for his taste and the pattern reminded him too much of an AT-field, something he'd rather not be reminded of in his own home._

_He'd probably have to learn to live with it – Removing it was hardly worth the effort of taking out all the furniture that rested on top of it, and he'd already refused Misato's offer concerning new wallpapers of his choosing, less old-fashioned furniture or one of those newfanled hanging storage devices._

_The only thing he could have found any real need or use for might have been a dimmer for his new lamp to improve his ceiling-staring experience, but he'd never hear the end of it from Misato and Asuka if he dared to say that out loud. They'd probably just laugh at him, and that was precisely what he was trying to avoid... much like their reactions to any other requests he might have voiced._

_He wanted neither to ask for too much, nor to have Misato feeling like she was doing something wrong or failing to push part any kind of fake humility, but though many things had changed since his arrival, there was a lot concerning her reactions to things that he still didn't have a clear grasp of._

_One way or another, it seemed like the light of day was already shining brightly outside his new domicile, something he did not immediately take note of because of the room's tiny window._

_He wouldn't be surprised if it was already past ten 'o clock, these visions had been seriously infringing on his sleeping schedule lately; He still had to suppress an involuntary shudder at the very thought of the last few, and accordingly, tried his best to think of them as little as possible and be swift in getting himself to the shower, rising from his bed with a sigh and pausing only to pick up his blanket from the floor._

_Once he stepped into the living room, his suspicious were confirmed, not just because of the pervasive sunlight streaming in from the veranda, but thanks to the clock in the kitchen._

_By the looks of it, he had the apartment all for himself – Even on Saturdays, there was no such thing as a day off at NERV, and Misato had been unlucky enough to be picked for the weekend shift today. As for Asuka, she'd spent all of yesterday bragging about having the 'exclusive privilege' of blowing her savings on a shopping trip with Kaji. So far, he'd been under the assumption that shopping was usually a girl thing and probably would have wondered why she wasn't taking Misato instead, if he hadn't spent that time lamenting how you apparently needed facial hair to be considered worthy of her and reflecting on how much she seemed to be playing in a completely different league despite living under the same roof as him._

_Shinji realized that there was no point to this;_

_He should probably hurry up and make it to the shower._

_On the way to the bathroom, he encountered the only member of this household who hadn't left the nest, ironically, the local bird._

_“Morning, PenPen.” Shinji greeted. The feathered creatured answered with a simple “Waark!”._

_“Man, you got the whole floor wet all over again... “ Shinji commented conversationally, as he looked around for the cleaning implements. “I guess I'll have to mop it up. To be honest, I've never really understood what's supposed to be so great about hot baths, but you seem to like them a lot... Which probably shouldn't surprise me, you being a Hot Springs penguin after all. Have you ever been to a real Hot Spring, though? Not that I've ever been to one. Maybe we should visit one one of these days, I'm sure Shikinami would like that as well...”_

_After he'd cleaned up the water puddles and casually wondered if the cleaning implements resented him for taking over their former home, he provided the penguin with something resembling breakfast and decided that he could do the rest of the housework one he was done showering._

_Afterward, he should probably take the time to read through his school notes – Lately, he'd been seriously struggling to make up for the absences induced by his piloting activities. They tended to cause a few days of absence here and there, sometimes consecutively, particularly when there were attacks, and now, he'd been out of school for an entire week – and even when he could physically make it to class, he'd have his head full of worries beyond what his normal degree of moodiness would normally predispose hm to, and it wasn't as if he was particularly gifted, motivated or studious in a way that would make up for that._

 

_Or perhaps, his abysmal failures in the last few tests were merely proof of the fact that he was simply just as idiotic as Asuka kept claiming. One way or another, he had yet to find the words or the courage reveal that ghastly truth to Misato._

_He'd been avoiding it for a while now and the longer it took him, the more daunting the confession became._

_But, as he said earlier, time to let the brooding cease and get himself showered – that is, he_ _would_ _have proceeded to the shower, if the doorbell hadn't interrupted his line of thought in that exact moment._

_Shinji didn't have the slightest clue who it could be, at a time like this – if it were Asuka or Misato, they'd have been back extremely early, not to mention that they would hardly ring their own doorbell._

_His friends weren't likely, either – As far as he knew, they were busy packing and shopping for the upcoming school trip. Shinji himself hadn't even bothered with that – he was already expecting that at least some, if not all EVA pilots would have to stay home in case of attacks or something, because of 'the fate of humanity', 'peace on earth' and so on. He didn't particularly mind, either – He couldn't swim so all he'd be doing in Okinawa would be to stand around as an embarrassment. Staying here would at very least spare him Asuka's inevitable mockery._

_Despite his awareness that he was currently wearing sweat-drenched pajamas, he moved to open the door, given that the alternative was to make the visitor wait for several minuted while he went to change his clothes, possibly creating the deceptive impression that no one was home._

_When he finally opened the door, Shinji was met with the sight of just about the last person he wanted to see right now, any potential awkwardness due to his dingy clothing being superseded by the gravity of the situation:_

_Standing in the doorframe was Yui, severe, upright, wearing a dirty hospital gown._

 

_“I will require a shower, fresh clothes and a warm meal.”_

 

\----

 

She sat there, in one of his old trousers that she'd somehow attached to her thin waist with an old belt, and a white T-shirt that was distinctly too large and at times revealed her shoulder, consuming the soup he'd made while she'd been washing herself as if it were the fruits of an oasis, found after a long trek through the desert.

It might have been more sensible to attempt fitting her into some of Asuka's or Misato's clothes (the former would likely not even notice if one of her five trillion sundresses were gone), but Shinji dared not enter their rooms, due to his personal, uh.... let's say, 'respect' of the ladies and their personal accommodations.

So far, he'd lacked the courage to speak to her in any way, simply observing the herald of his obliteration with a cautious awe, from a safe distance, fascinated to see her doing something so... 'mundane' – She appeared to have been _quite_ hungry.

“I'm sorry for barging on on you like this and demanding things even though you do not know me right now.” she apologized, when she found the time for it in between two spoonfuls of soup. “After all this time, it's still hard for me to get used to the facts that we are almost complete strangers here. For some definition of 'stranger'. I know that you're not the boy I know, but, I know that you're Shinji Ikari. And I know that the Shinji Ikari of right now is too kind and decent to slam his door on a 'damsel in distress'.”

She turned toward him with a sad smile on her face.

“I'm in big trouble, far away from everybody I know, so, of course, I come to Shinji Ikari. I guess you know better than anyone that people do strange things under those circumstances. Maybe it's just the fear of being alone...”

“What's the matter right now? ... what exactly happened? I've heard from my friend that... that you got hurt.”

“Oh that? Don't worry, it wasn't as bad as it looked, at least... let's just say my injuries were the least of it. There's something else, something that _really_ went wrong... Let's just said that it happened because I was making sure that you were alright. But it's not your fault, right? I chose this path myself.”

“I... I found your name tag.”

“Keep it. As a memento, if you will.”

He'd hoped that she would take the evidence of his damnation away from him. Instead, she got up and placed her soup dish in the sink.

“I'm leaving then. I wouldn't want to bother a complete stranger any more than necessary. We will meet again.”.

With what seemed like a brief sigh, she got up and departed toward the door.

Now or never.

“Er, uhm... _wait!_ ”

Seconds after speeding past him, she stopped and turned.

“Wait... Ichijou-san...”

“It's alright to call me 'Yui'. You'd even do me great favor if you did. What is the matter?”

“Well, Yui-san...” Shinji swallowed. If she were to tell him that all of his efforts were doomed to be in vain...

No. If he ever wanted to have his peace, then... he mustn’t run away from this answer. “There is something I wanted to ask...”

It took him a great effort not to avert his eyes.

“It it really true? Is it true that I'm going to fail? Is there really... nothing I can do? Am I really that useless? Was everything I've been trying to do so far really that meaningless?”

Of all sudden, she looked deeply shocked.

“I never said that you fail...”

“You said that it 'depends on how you define it', and you said 'Third Impact'. That's what most people around here would call 'failure'. Don't leave me hanging in the dark like that, what do you think I'm going to feel?”

“Oh... oh. I see. I... I'm sorry. You wouldn't be used to this yet, the angels, the EVAs, everything, this must all still be very strange to you. My world has been nothing _but_ this for a very long time. Maybe I've come to take the prospect of a second chance for granted, and _this_ is my punishment now...

I apologize. I failed to express myself clearly enough. You do _not_ fail.

That's precisely why all of this happened...”

“B-but you said 'Third Impact'-!”

“Yes, I did, but listen, I...

No. Forget it. Your last battle was the one with the double angel, correct?”

Shinji nodded obediently.

He'd long since stopped wondering how she could possibly know all this.

“Alright.” Yui acknowledged, before looking him deep in the eye and declaring her next prophetic revelation: “With the next one, there won't be much for you to do, but keep yourself ready at the edge of the volcano. You'll have to jump in completely if you want to save her. Hang onto the cable with one hand as you jump in case it comes loose from the shock. Don't forget the laws of physics. Physics is actually an important keyword here.

'Thermic Expansion'. Remember that. ”

This felt like one of these scenes in video games where you were given an important item and told to have it with you, likely for the next plot event.

Shinji was still confused. That, too, was reminescent of certain video games.

“Physics? Save her? Who do you mean? And... Vocano? Is that meant to be some sort of riddle? I'm not good with that sort of thing. Please just tell me, what do you mean by 'volcano'?”

“Volcano means volcano.” Yui clarified, without actually doing so.

Shinji blinked.

“Believe me, it will make sense when the moment comes.” Yui assured him with a smile.

“As I said, I'll see you again. By the way... Major Katsuragi must be at home, but where is Asuka?”

“Shikinami-san?”

“Are you still calling her that?”

“Uhm...”

“Forget it. Just tell me where she is.”

“She's gone shopping. ...with Kaji-san, I think.”

“Good. Then it will happen very soon. See you around.”

With these words, she crossed the door frame and calmly walked along the hallway.

Before Shinji could ask her why she kept referring to Misato as a 'Major', the automitical door closed behind her.

He didn't get to ask her further questions about Third Impact, and perhaps, that was just as she had intended it.

All in all, this strange encounter had left him with mixed feelings.

On the one hand, she'd been adamant about assuring him that he wasn't going to fail, on the other hand, it was uncanny how much she seemed to know – She'd immediately known where to find the plates and the silverware in his kitchen, and even casually reached for a little package hidden in the back of one of the bathroom drawers, where either Asuka or Misato had hidden some of those patches that you'd use to conceal your nipples if you were wearing a low-cut or backless outfit (not that Shinji would have put it past either of them to own such things, given that they were both a lot more...confident in their sexuality than their male flatmate) – all while stating flatly that neither Misato's nor Asuka's bras would fit her, with as little room for doubt as if she'd previously confirmed this by trying them on.

And she hadn't denied anything about Third Impact...

He realized that he could probably have spent all day brooding about this without ever making sense of it – instead, he decided that he should probably be doing his best to memorize her instructions for the next battle – If only he'd written them down!

She'd said something about a 'volcano' and 'keep ready' and something about holding on a cable. She'd also mentioned the words 'thermal expansion'.

Shinji sighed.

Wasn't that part of the physics test he'd failed last week?

If Yui meant to warn him about _that_ , she was already too late.

She'd also spoken about Asuka... who was probably drooling at the sight of Kaji's facial hair right now. Overall, Shinji found Misato's ex-boyfriend likeable enough to feel a little guilt about the implicit disloyalty, but he'd like him a lot more if he wasn't a constant reminder of just how nonexistent his chances with Asuka were.

He couldn't believe hos unlucky he was.

 

\---

 

“I can't believe how lucky I am! I'm so happy that you finally found the time to go shopping with me!”

If Kaji had to describe the expression of the young girl who was clinging to his left arm with both of hers, he might have exaggeratedly referred to it as the widest grin in human history.

 

Knowing her history, as he would after having been her handler for so long, he found it very relieving to see her this engaged in normal teenage activities – Perhaps spending more time around children her own age would help her become more well-adjusted.

Of course there was still the matter of her inappropriate flirtations, which he tried to turn down as respectfully and gently as he could, but those were not a problem in and of themselves as long as they remained at the level of a typical schoolgirl crushing on a teacher or a pop star from the distance without expecting any real progression – Now that she'd had ample access to boys her own age, one could expect that problem to taper of over all – After all, if Asuka was being adored and liked by so many people, and got the chance to slowly learn how to like and adore others in return, it should be strange if she couldn't be happy, right?

He was always glad to hear Asuka talking about things like which shops and labels were supposedly 'in' right now and how she'd already checked some of them out alongside her new friend Hikari – Though she made a point out of making it look like child's play, adapting to a foreign country and finding new friends was not an easy task for a girl her age.

He wished to give her and the other children as much of a normal life as they possibly could – As his own youth had been dominated by floods, dirt and deprivation, he was all too aware of the value that such a peaceful, ordinary afternoon activity contained, which made it that much harder to uproot these children from what little peace and normalcy they had known in their lives to send them onto a battle field – Asuka was probably not even aware of how precious these quiet days could be, or what an injustice it was that so much of it had been taken from her. And neither was Mari.

As different as these two might be, they'd both been far too willing to let go of the ground beneath their feet to tumble head-first into a dangerous and foreign world.

They were to young to understand it yet, so it was only right that he would make it his duty to support at least Asuka in reclaiming what little normalcy this precariously balanced world could afford to give her.

In his life, he'd come to learn a truth of which he couldn't say if it was harsh or comforting, only that he had little doubt of its wisdom:

Even during the harshest of ordeals, one should always put aside some time to simply _live._

That's the very reason one keeps fighting, wasn't it?

In order to live, for these scattered, happy moments that were worth it.

For that sake, he'd decided to honor Asuka's request to go shopping with her – though he also had some other reasons that weren't quite so noble. He hoped that looking after the children might score him some brownie points with Misato.

Eventually, their leisurely stride across Tokyo-3s shopping district led them to one of the shops Asuka had been gushing about. Unlike what one might expect, she did not pause every two steps to admire the sightly merchandise, but took a straight walk through the aisles and clothing stands as if she already knew full well what exactly she was going to buy – Through going exactly for what she wanted was not unusual behavior for this girl.

The designation of their journey, however, _did_ surprise Kaji:

“Wait, the swimsuit department?”

He had a dark premotion.

Indeed, Asuka soon reappeared from behind the nearest clothing rack, accompained by a bikini that barely surpassed the coat hanger it was displayed on in terms of surface area.

The top would cover her back and shoulders with little more than thin spaghetti straps, but it was a consolation that the roughly triangular front parts would be covering at least two fifths of her 'chest'.

The likewise 'stringy' bottom part did not promise much refuge for her backside either.

“Well...” Kaji began, attempting the diplomatic approach. “Don't you think that's a little to bold for a girl your age?”

“Maybe back in your day. These days, all girls are wearing things like this!” Asuka opined.

Kaji understood that this was the point where he was supposed to ask if she'd jump out of the window too if 'everybody else' were doing it, but he decided to let the girl have her fun – The odds of dissuading her were low, and besides, it wasn't like she would be wearing that thing to school, given that they likely had school-issue bathing suits.

After they'd left the shop with the swimsuit and a colorful collection of scant and/or sinfully expensive clothing, Kaji did wonder if these recent acquisitions served any particular purpose – A question which Asuka was ready to answer with great swiftness and even greater Enthusiasm:

“It's all for our school trip!” the Second Child explained, beaming with genuine anticipation. “I'm really looking forward to it!”

“So where will you be going?”

“Okinawa!” she replied, excitedly. “We're even going to take a diving course!”

Kaji knew the young pilot well enough to bet that she must have generously adorned the corresponding pages in her calendar with plenty of little hearts in pink glitter gel pens.

“Diving, eh? I haven't done that in years...” he answered, pensively. The world kept getting more complicated, and far-reaching duties had required equal dedication of him.

“Say, Kaji-san, where did your school trip go back in the day?”

“It fell through.”

“How come?”

“Ever heard of this thing called Second Impact?”

 

\---

 

Intending to top off his cozy Sunday evening with a nice, warm bath, the local penguin was relaxing in the katsuragi household's generously sized tub, when he was startled by a shrill shriek of displeasure emanating from the living room – a sound that, unfortunately for the dapper bird and his owner, had become rather frequent in their idiosyncratic little household.

“What do you mean, we can't go?” Asuka complaining, leaning onto her outstretched arms than in turn rested on the table as if to look down at her flatmates.

“Precisely what I said.” Misato confirmed, without any greater distrbance in her beer-induced good mood.

Asuka certainly didn't see these bad news as anything to grin about – “And why?” she demanded to know.

“Because the EVAs have to be ready for combat at all times.”

For Asuka, who'd spent much time preparing, shopping, packing and neatly labeling all of her suitcases, bags and pouches, this was not exactly a satisfying answer. She'd only just been gushing about how much she looked forward to trying out the new bikini she'd aquired for the occasion, only for her bubble to be popped on what would have been the last night before the departure.

“Nobody told me anything about this!”

“Which is why I'm telling you _now_.”

But the Second Child was not listening to reason: “Pah! I'd like to know what kind of dunderhead decided this!”

“The leader of the operations division, that is, the 'dunderhead' sitting right in front of you right now.”

Asuka hoisted herself onto her feet for good, placing her hands on her hips.

The only thing that could possibly irritate her more than being deprived of her well-deserved vacation, which should have been her good right _especially_ as a savior of the earth in her tender age, was how her absolute wimp of a flatmate kept quietly sipping his tea like a doormat inscribed with an enthusiastic invitation to please, please trample it to your heart's content – If there was one thing Asuka couldn't stand on the pain of death, it was meek, obedient people that followed every order like well-behaved little marionettes and let others to with them whatever they wanted.

It was simply disgusting.

“Hey, Daddy's boy!” she complained, in the vain hope to get some sort of reaction out of that blockhead. “Don't just sit there and _say_ something! You're supposed to be the man in the man household, aren't you?”

But these provocations, up to and including that last one, were mostly without effect; In fact, Shinji took them with a placid smile. It was hard to take her seriously when she went one of her usual tirades of complaints about his person but inevitably ended with some variation of 'Third Child, do something' once she was out of ideas, and expected the exact same person whose masculinity she'd been doubting mere seconds ago to help her out and save the day.

In some was it was almost cute, but he didn't have the impression that she was aware of the stakes here – She never shut up about how she was proud of being an EVA pilot, but that only seemed to apply when it brought her privileges rather than duties.

This was yet more proof of just how little he understood of the processes in her head despite of all the challenges they'd braved together, and that the reasons that had driven her to climb into that terrifying war machine with a smile on her face must have been profoundly different from the things that bound _him_ to this place, whatever either of these might be.

He didn't claim to understand it.

That aside, he wasn't terribly bothered by the lack of a school trip, to begin with, he wasn't really all that crazy for travels, they were nothing more than stressful, hectic interruptions to his peaceful routines, and all for the sake of spending an inconsequential span of days stuck in a foreign place.

“I don't really mind.” he admitted. “I was expecting this to happen.”

“And you give up this quickly?” Asuka retorted, outraged.

She didn't know weather to classify the nod and vaguely affirmative nod that followed as a gesture of audacity or proof of the Third Child's pitiful nature, but this measly smile of his did not dissipate for a moment.

If you could win a trophy for being a wimp, that idiot would probably score silver, because he'd be to much of a wimp to win a wimp competition.

“You're a total wimp, do you know that?” she complained, redundantly. “There's nothing worse than a henpecked man!”

“Don't say that...!”

 

Interrupting the admittedly amusing discourse between the Children by firmly planting her latest can of beer onto the table, Misato drew their attention back to herself.

“Believe me, I understand your feelings, but we have no choice. What if an angel attacks while you're away?”

Since Asuka could not muster a logical counterargument to throw at that, she decided to vent its frustration in its unrefined form at those who had caused it, less out of any real hope to convince them, and more to ensure that she wouldn't be the only one whose day would be ruined.

“All we do is wait around! Why do we always have to follow _their_ time table? Why don't we track them down wherever they're sitting, and attack _them_ for a change?!”

“If that were possible, we would have done it already. ” Misato explained without losing her composure.

Once again, Shinji was forced to confront just how little he knew about his enemies.

 _Where_ they even came from, if they even existed in some physical place _at all_ before they just showed up out of nowhere was a question he hadn't even considered before – perhaps, he lacked Asuka's more practical thinking, or the scientific methodology to attempt to extend normal rules of time, space, cause and effect onto beings which seemed to exist far outside the world as it was known to man.

These things were so much of a black box to him that he didn't even consider the possibility that they might physically _be_ in a tangible, worldly location in the here and now.

They were gigantic monsters with the innate ability to level cities when they should be collapsing under their own weight, so he'd been given very little reason to think that the mundane rules that one could take for granted when it came to everyday objects like, say, frying pans applied to these beasts.

Though once he considered, it _did_ technically make more sense to assume that the angels must have come from somewhere that was possibly a real, physical location than to expect the opposite.

Shinji's musings might have considered in this direction for a good while if they hadn't been scattered away by Misato's voice at this point:

“If I were you, I'd see this as an opportunity. ”

So far, she'd faced the whole discussion in a fairly relaxed manner, as it constituted little more than a minor annoyance that was adorable if predictably childish from her point of view, but now, her features took on a mildly malicious look, as if she had some sort of ace up her nonexistent sleeves – and indeed, she did:

“While your classmates are away, you now have a full week to catch up on your studies! Or did you really think that I don't know about _these_?”

Much to the Children's displeasure, Misato pulled out a copy of their report cards and paraded them in front of their faces like a folding fan made of playing cards – It was evidently too late for Shinji to present their contents in a 'diplomatic' manner.

“Don't think you can hide your slacking off from me, I have all your grades reported directly to my personal terminal.”

While every single muscle in Shinji's face wa being used to express a sentiment of 'Lord, have mercy!' without a single sound, Asuka was not so quick to accept anything that could be construed as a failure.

And when one couldn't deny the results themselves, the only chance to contest them was to dispute their validity:

“Bah! These numbers mean absolutely nothing. As if this old-fashioned school system could really do me justice!” she complained, hoping that no one in this room would be aware that the German school system was not nearly as great as its reputation suggested and in fact regarded as an antiquated, conformism-ridden ramshackle piecemeal in Germany proper.

She was evidently under the illusion that Misato would require that knowledge in order to shoot down her objection and the delusions of superiority that came attached to it: “Well, you know what they say: When in Rome, do as the Romans do. I'm sure you'll get used to our school system!”

“Absolutely not!” she retorted, vacating her place in frustration to remove the bags and suitcases that she now perceived as monuments to her defeat from the sight of her flatmates, longing to vent her frustrations in ways that didn't run the risk of being observed or otherwise compromising her pride.

The worst about this whole thing was how she and Shinji had been scolded in the same breath, without any distinction between their achievements. She couldn't suffer to be lumped into the same little box as that little wannabe.

That was completely unfair and besides, they were evidently _not_ the same!

 

Misato simply leaned back with a sigh and directed her attention back at the can of beer left in her right hand.

With a certain delay, it occurend to Shinji that perhaps, it wasn't entirely a bad thing for Misato to scold him about his grades. He'd done it in her usual nonchalant manner, but she _did_ scold him and had evidently concerned herself with how he was doing in school... that was something a real mother would do, wasn't it?

At least, he thought so. It's not as if he could remember what having a mother had been like.

 

\----

 

When the big day finally came and the plane to Okinawa departed, none of the three Children had been on board, though it was not from lack of protesting from Asuka.

She may or may not have been aware of the underlying futility of such statements, but either way, she'd been in a rotten mood all day long, and refusedto waste even a single opportunity to complain about everything and anything unlucky enough to cross her field of vision.

Even as she was standing on the local airport's roof, watching as the condensation trail that the rest of their class had left on their way as the aircraft had carried them far away, her anger didn't subside.

Only during while bidding farewell to her classmates did she briefly affect a mask of indifference, claiming that she was proud to be an elite pilot and far too old for school trips anyways. The sheer speed with which she seemed to switch off all her feelings and the confidence with which she spat out her lies puzzled him about as much as it disconcerted him, and unfortunately, the way he'd been glancing over at her while drifting into his own realm of thoughts and questions hadn't gone unnoticed, and Touji, being Touji, would never have ailed to capitalize on such a golden opportunity to tease him: “What, first Ayanami and now Miss Crazy over there? You really got some exotic tastes there, buddy!”

Shinji had obviously scrambled to deny everything, but his incoherent stuttering and the light redness on his cheeks had betrayed him, which in turn prompted Touji to coyly ask when he could expect the wedding to take place.

At this point, Asuka had gotten involved in order that Shinji was most definitely _not_ on the list of eligible candidates.

Ultimately, it had escalated into another fight between Asuka and Touji, wheras Shinji stood to the side, distinctly daunted by the exchange of colorful insults and snappy comebacks contributing the occasional “Uhm...” without really taking part in the argument, until Hikari took it upon herself to smooth over the verbal combat before the noise level blew out someone's ear drums or resulted in an unscheduled encounter with airport security.

To begin with, Asuka had insisted on following the others to the airport an an extension of her protests, perhaps to guard her pride by succeeding to enforce _something,_ if not all she had wanted, and randomly dragged Shinji out of bed because she didn't like the thought of anyone getting to sleep longer than she did, but once Misato had suggested that this might be an opportunity to see his friends one last time before their departure, he'd come along of his own free will.

But now, they were gone, and all the Children could do was to follow their trail with their longing gazes. That Rei hadn't shown up at all didn't help, though it was hardly a surprise. Asuka had insisted on hijacking this opportunity to rant about how she was probably antisocial and considered herself too good to spare some words of farewell for the common folk, not without underlining that she herself _had_ come even though she had far more justified reasons to be proud.

If that was supposed to posture her as being humble or approachable, it hadn't worked, at least as far as Shinji's opinion was concerned. Strictly speaking, Rei didn't have any real reason to how up here. She wouldn't be going on that flight either and she wasn't close enough to anyone who _was_ going to owe them a farewell or be expected to strongly feel their absence. Her only real friend in class II-A was Shinji himself, and he wasn't going anywhere.

Shinji himself, by contrast, received a surprising amount of attention, including some brief well-wishes from Hikari who then spent some more time trying to cheer up Asuka and promising her a souvenir. There was also an indistinct crowd of girls some of which Shinji couldn't even name who all lined up to express their heartfelt condolences about the trip and waved at him when they left.

Shinji decided that the polite thing to do would be to wave right back, which was met with much rejoicing on part of the ladies. (Asuka had to deal with a similar, largely male horde that she didn't pay very much attention to)

Kensuke had likewise expressed his sympathy for the children and vowed to provide Shinji with his share of amusing holiday videos and souvenirs. Mitsurugi, by contrast, expressed his thanks to the two and spoke of how they all ought to appreciate that it was precisely the sacrifice of people like Asuka, Shinji and Rei that made it possible for the rest of them to experience some carefree amusement on a school trip without having to fear for their safety.

Touji simply flashed them a wide grin and claimed that he'd have enough fun for the three of them.

All the same, they were probably already several kilometers away by now, which Asuka was distinctly furious about, leading her to follow the aircraft with a fuming stare, with her hands on her hips and her legs in a broad, dominant position.

Shinji reacted in a somewhat calmer manner, leaning against the viewing plaform's handrails and realizing that he was really going to miss those three.

He had no idea what he would even be doing all week.

Just a few weeks ago, he wouldn't have thought twice about spending all his afternoons listening to music and/or staring at the ceiling, a pastime that he still defaulted to when he felt overwhelmed and needed a little space to order his thoughts, or simply didn't have anything else to do.

It wouldn't have been quite right to say that he enjoyed that empty time, but it was certainly a relief in a world that required him to be mindful of so many little things wherever he went; Life was chaotic, vast, confusing and complicated, and there was much of it that he still didn't understand, therefore, a small, safe, enclosed system was always a very welcome and much-needed respite.

Yet as of late, he'd dared to venture outside the enclosures of his habits, or allowed others to lead him into the larger world, bit by bit, little by little, and it had been going well for a while.

Without really noticing on a conscious level before today, he'd come to spend a significant portion of his life outside that protection, to the point that it had almost become normal for him, just like it seemed to be for everybody else, and now and then, he'd catch himself with a lighthearted smile.

Now that some of the people who had guided him into this big, bright world would be absent for a bit, he felt suddenly aware of just much much they had become fixtures of his life. As he was now, he'd prefer to have them around unless there was a particular reason for him to seclude himself... perhaps, because he knew better now?

“Let's go.” Asuka ordered, morosely, after she'd been forced to realize that her squinting wasn't going to bring back the long since faded condensation train.

“Come on. We're just wasting our time here.”

He followed her instructions almost reflexively, a habit that had probably spared him the occasional beating.

He presumed that the very casual way in which this thought crosses his head meant that Asuka had become a new fixture in his life as well.

 

\----

 

Though the need for constant operational readiness didn't allow the central dogma bridge crew all too much vacation either, it would probably have been an overstatement to claim that they were working – As it happened, there were no angels attacking, there was no maintenance to be done and no crucial experiments to monitor.

At the moment, they weren't dealing with anything that NERV H's clever machinery couldn't handle on its own, which meant that the operators were basically decoration and free to use such quiet minuted to occupy themselves in other ways.

The elder Mitsurugi may have spared the occasional glance for the readings at his console and the automatic system tests they were reporting on, but he spend most of his time badgering his coworkers with adorable pictures of his son and heaping praise on the boy's academic performance.

According to what Misato overheard when she paused to look past the railings of her work station to see how the technicians on the lower posts were doing, Mitsurugi junior did not share the pilot's recent academic struggles.

Not that her own station was exactly a buzzing beehive – Ibuki was deeply immersed in a heartrending romance novel which had brought her to the edge of tears, whereas Hyuuga's lecture of choice, weekly magazine that published recent manga chapters, appeared to be of a more humoristic nature.

Though Aoba had also brought himself something to read – a couple of music related magazines, to be exact, he'd long since been hit by a sudden burst of inspiration and was now trying out whatever new tricks he'd learned on his trusty air guitar.

It was such a slow day that even Ritsuko, patron saint of workaholics, had actually taken the time to brew a _fresh_ coffee for a chance.

“...a school trip?” she asked, her tone a little bit chiding. “Don't you think that's a little bit inappropriate given our situation?”

Misato wasn't sure whether she'd leaned of it from the report she was current reading, or if it had anything to do with a certain subordinate of hers going on about how much he missed 'Little Nagato'.

“I think it's important to let them have a little bit of fun now and then, _precisely_ because we live in these dark times. Let them enjoy their lives a little, while they still can...”

Even as she said that, Misato couldn’t quite bring herself to look her co-worker in the eye.

“You really seem to believe that, and yet, it was your decision to keep the pilots here. It would have been enough to have Rei stay behind, we needed her for other experiments anyways. ”

“In theory perhaps, but us in the operations division have to plan battles in the real world, and so far we've always done better with more than one EVA at our disposal. Besides, having only two of them fly off to amuse themselves while one stays behind sounds a little unfair, doesn't it?”

“Unfair? You can't be serious.”

“Of course not. But given what's at stake, we have no other choice. That doesn't mean that I think it's right... or that it was easy to tell Asuka that her vacation's been canceled, I think she was really looking forward to it.”

“So Shinji-kun is still an obedient child, hm? Knowing you, you probably implored them to be reasonable and hoped they'd be convinced by some rationate that you don't even believe in yourself. You try to package everything for didactic expediency in order to nudge them in a particular direction, in the hope that they'll think that at least _you_ believe in what you're doing and feel safe with you...

But deep down you probably feel like they might have more sympathy for your real feelings than for the illusion you're maintaining for their sakes.”

“I want to be the firm, adult support than they need, even if it sometimes means that I can't be their friend.”

“But you'd like to be, wouldn't you?”

“I'm not sure... Shinji in particular seems like he could use a lot of both. Yesteday I had to scold them about their grades. Felt really rotten afterward, I mean, what gives me the right? I'm less worried about Asuka, she's always been a very good student even despite her pilot duties. She probably just needs a little time to adjust to the new school, or maybe she thinks that she doesn't have to bother with school anymore now that she gets to fight the angels.

But when it comes to Shinji... He missed a lot of class because of the battles and how they affected him, the experiments and the training consume a lot of time, it hasn't been _that_ long since he first transferred... He's basically working two jobs at once and anything to do with piloting still burdens him a lot. He's at such a difficult age, too. How can I possibly expect him to get good grades under these circumstances?

But if I _don't_ fuss about his grades, who else is going to do it, and what's going to become of his education and his future? The only reason we're doing all of his is so that children like him get a shot at growing up. It doesn't seem right to endanger his future...”

“You seem to be very convinced that there will _be_ a future. When you look at it objectively, a single boys' grades are very unimportant in the grand scheme of things, particularly when you consider that the fate of the entire world is at stake here; You might even see it at a positive that school is ending up neglected for the sake of his participation and not the other way around – I'd rather see his grades slip than his synch ratio, motivation or overall mental state.

You can worry about whether he'll find work later on when we've made sure that there will _be_ a world for him to work in. You might even debate if there is any point in sending him to school at all. Who knows if he will even survive the battles? And even if he does, there's a good chance that he'll need to be institutionalized.”

Faced with her friend's cool, impassive words, she was forced to grip the railing ever harder in order to keep her composure.

Whether she like it or not, she was quite aware that Ritsuko had spoken the truth – the peace embodied by her subordinate's various relaxations and the childish bickering in her own household was ultimately little more than an illusion, a paper-thin veneer disguising a constant state of danger.

Ritsuko had spoken the truth – and it made Misato indescribably furious that it _was_ the truth.

And leader of the operations division or not, all of this often lead her to feel lonely in her own four walls, because she was forced to hide the worries she wanted to shield the children from.

As the adult in this situation, she should have been able to deal with this, and yet, she found herself longing to share those same worries with them, and that had her wondering if she really wanted to be a friend to the children, or if it wasn't more about claiming a friend and support for herself, and she was disgusted as her own weakness.

 

\----

 

Unlike Shinji, Asuka was very certain about what she wanted to do this week – swimming, bathing ,diving!

Once she had decided that there was something she wanted to have or do, she wouldn't allow any force in this world to stop her, be it Misato or the angels.

If she wanted something, she would get it, no room for arguing!

After all, she was the best, and the rest of the world could consider itself fortunate to have her.

After she'd spent quite a while being insufferable and whining about how she had ended up buying that new bikini for naught, and how absurd it was to live on an island without ever being able to go swimming, Misato had mentioned that there was a staff pool at NERV HQ.

Naturally, Asuka had immediately decided that she would be spending the afternoon there, and proceeded to grab Shinji by the wrist as if he were one of her personal possessions. He wondered why in the world she'd insist on dragging him along if she supposedly couldn't stand him? Did she honestly get that much enjoyment out of making him miserable?

He didn't even bother to resist her – after all, when had she ever cared about anything he'd said or felt?

Including what she felt about _him._

He'd admit that it might have been some hopeless wish to please her that led him to come along meekly and assure Misato that he didn't mind coming along while Asuka dragged him over to the entrance of his room.

“Get your stuff!” she commanded, domineeringly, before turning around to pack her own towels and bathing suits.

More out of habit than any chance that she was still paying attention, he nodded before stumbling past the door frame that led to his room, had a look around, and wondered what in hell's name he was supposed to pack – he didn't own a bathing suit, and he couldn't swim, either.

His teacher had made a few attempts to teach him that particular survival skill, but he'd never really had the courage to let go of the edge of the pool and would moderately panic at the very suggestion that he try it 'alone' for a bit. As he'd grown older and sometimes been asked if he wanted to come along, he'd usually responded with a hesitant shake of his head in order to avoid any more of these uncomfortable, embarrassing situations.

He had a few distant memories of a day when he'd passed the local community pool at about 12 or 13 on some errand he no longer recalled, and stopped to look.

He pictured himself, hidden in the shadow of a tree, his hands both clawed into the mesh-wire fence, his eyes wistfully transfixed on the other children, and how they spoke to each other in the sunlight, how they laughed, played and shot through the waters with an otherworldly ease, piercing its surface like arrows.

He'd felt like a phantom in the daytime, a ghost whose pale form couldn't be seen in the light of the day, as if he were the slightest of all shadows, incapable of speaking a single word , forever damned to silently observe the world of the living without ever taking part in it.

To do so, he'd have had to walk around the perimeter to find the entrance, he'd have needed a bathing suit, money and a towel, and besides, he couldn't swim.

There had been a few times he'd considered bringing money, and one time he actually did, but the bills never left his pocket. He'd understood that even if he were to get to the other side of that gence, nothing would have changed.

One day, he'd been noticed by a somewhat older boy and asked what he was staring at.

At that point, it had been a long, long time since he'd last spoken to other boys, and he could barely manage a few unintelligible stutterings before it all became too much for him.

He'd turned around and ray away, as fast as he could.

After that, Shinji had never even come close to the community pool ever again.

If you'd told him back then that he'd ever have a group of friends that he spent enough time with to actually miss them when they happened to be gone for a week, he would never have believed.

 

Even so, there was still the question of his empty backpack and what to put in it – rather than his nonexistent bathing suit, Shinji decided to bring his laptop and his school books, since he didn't have any better ideas and would have to take care of that unfinished business sooner or later.

In the hasty manner of a thief or at least someone attempting to hide a broken vase, he stuffed his things into his vase, feeling somewhat guilty for an act that Asuka was bound to be displeased with – and probably did so with good justification, as the Second Child ended up barging into his room just as he'd finished packing, and promptly grabbed his wrist to drag him along.

“You and I are going to have a lot of fun today!” she declared, teasingly.

The Third Child had few doubts that _she_ would be having fun, but he wasn't very sure if there was much overlap in their definitions of that world.

 

\----

 

At least as far as the schoolwork was concerned, his suspicions turned out to be right: This was not fun. First of all, he'd have to deal with physics, where he'd last scored an 'E'.

After several reads through the books and worksheets, he'd managed to arrive at a rough understanding of what was meant by this in principle, but that didn't mean that he had the slightest clue about how these equations were meant to be used, or how he'd be able to remember them in the first place.

At the moment, he was attempt to divine what might have gone wrong with the latest problem, given that the equations refused to spit out a sensible result no matter what.

Needless to say, the last math test hadn’t been much of a victory either.

As he sat there despairing about various physics problems, he faintly became aware of the sound of steps – He assumed that it had to be Asuka, who had disappeared into the changing room a few subjective eternities ago.

Sinji himself was still wearing his school uniform, and had arranged his things on a plastic table at a safe distance to preempt any scenario where Asuka ended up throwing him into the pool to appease one of her arcane whims. Besides, water, books and laptops didn't mix, so every meter between himself and the H²O was a gift of the heavens.

Perhaps he should not have brought any sensitive electronics to this place in the first place, but it wasn't like he had a choice.

Asuka never care for anything he said, and even now, she had very little respect for the fact that he was visibly busy.

What Shinji didn't know was that her decision to drag him here was a very convoluted, but, for her sensibilities fairly straightforward way to show him that she'd like to spend more time with him.

She'd hoped to raise her mood by catching herself some male attention – of course, her choice had only fallen on this idiot because he'd likely be too desperate to spurn her.

She'd bet anything that this loser secretly had the hots for her, and besides, as her fellow EVA pilot he was the only remotely acceptable target, though he obviously barely compared to Kaji-san and other proper men.

She couldn't wait to see his reaction to her new bikini!

And because she didn't want to wait until that blockhead noticed what was directly in front of him, she'd even do him a special favor and lower herself to the level of starting a conversation with him:

“What are you doing there?”

“Studying physics.” Shinji stated truthfully, as he continued his struggle with the equation.

 _Great!_ He was doing exactly what he was told to, and wouldn't even look at her – People like that irritated Asuka more than anything. “You're such an obedient little teacher's pet!”

“But we _have_ to do it!” he protested, though not very emphatically.

After all, this wasn't about doing what anyone said, but about whether he would fail his classes this year.

But when he looked up at her with the initial intention of making that point very clear, the words got stuck in his throat and all plans regard.

After all, Asuka had left for the explicit purpose of changing her clothes earlier – and now she had done it.

She was wearing the new Bikini she'd been talking about, though it was probably more sensible to define the sinfully red outfit not as clothing, but as the lack thereof.

The bottom part did little to shield much of Asuka's own bottom from his glances, and the over part covered less than half of her breasts, offering him an panoramic view of the valley of her chest that surpassed even the one he had gotten when she had climbed into bed with him on the night before the last battle.

The whole getup was garnished with some silver sunglasses with blue lenses that she had flipped upward to boost her usual aura of cool superiority, and her usual interface nerve clips, that she didn't consider to remove even now, showcasing just how much her job as a pilot had become part of her identity.

To hell with the expression 'angelic beauty' – Asuka's beauty was _demonic_ in its nature, part of a power that wanted his destruction and made him a plaything of its heat and its cold, much like the moon that kept circling the Earth while causing the dance of the tides upon its surface without ever, ever touching it.

Of course, Shinji had previously seen her without any clothing at all, but back then, he hadn't really had the time to get a good look before the swift arrival of her foot had plunged his field of vision into darkness.

But now, she wasn't making the slightest attempt to cover herself, despite the large amounts of blood that Shinji had no power to keep from rushing into his face and burning under his skin like a fever daze, nay, she was presenting herself on a silver platter, in her usual proud and provocative manner, like an call girl advertising her fleshy merchandise.

“Look!” she declared in her light yet distinctly playful voice, quite deliberate in her titillation. “Maybe we can't go to Okinawa, but there's no reason that we can't go diving right here!”

He instinctively backed away as she leaned forward.

This was a little bit too much for him, he was absolutely not used to these kind of things and besides, every single tidbit of his upbringing said that he ought to look away – but _she_ was the one insisting on shoving her twin mounds of her chest almost directly into his face.

There was no room for anything else in his field of vision, and it was as if he was no longer the master of his eyes as an intense sense of heat and a certain wild tingling took over his body.

“Let me see...” he heard her youthful voice musing. “Just let me have a look.”

If he didn't know better he would have said that she was deliberately adding a tint of seductiveness to the sound of her voice, but that impossible – She would never try to get his attention in such a way; She might as well be living in a different world as him.

She might have been made of tangible flesh and blood, standing right in front of him and spent much of her days in his presence, but effectively, she was as distant from him as goddesses and queens of the golden ages or the long dead heroines of distant wars of whom he knew little more than their names and the concept of their identities.

Though they shared the same space at the same time, she seemed to exist in a completely different plane of being where she had access to many people and opportunities that he was barred from and, what more, knew he'd never experience in his life.

They existed together in the way animals and humans did, in that there were some common universals, and that he was capable of perceiving some form of her with his five senses, _see her_ without being able to conceive of her thoughts or understand her concerns.

 

“Can't you even solve such a simple equation?” she scoffed playfully, again clarifying the sharp contrast between them. Unlike him, she was one of the Beautiful People, one of the fortunate aristocrats of a world he barely managed to cope with, effortlessly floating where had to laboriously drag himself forward at every step of the way.

He couldn't bring himself to pay much attention to her typing fingers or the equations on the screen – His eyes were  _ ensorceled _ by her flaming red hair, her feminine lips, and last but not least her breasts, which hung off her body like opulent stocks of ripe fruit waiting to be plucked while these lost little water droplets still clung to them as a praise to their freshness. 

“See? Done! It's just that easy.”

She couldn't cease for a single moment to constantly rub under his nose how she was so much better, more intelligent and much more talented than he. It was if she'd only brought him along for the explicit purpose of mocking his stupidity.

“If you're so good at this, then how did you manage to flunk the last test just as badly as I did?” he demanded to know, making a half-hearted attempt at defending his dignity. 

It didn't come out as caustic as he'd initially intended it. 

“That's just because I didn't understand half of the questions.”

“So, you're having problems with our language?” Shinji replied in surprise.

He didn't think it would even be possible for her to be bad at anything.

She certainly didn't have any problems with _speaking_ Japanese, which made it easy to forget that she'd only moved to the country very recently.

It was another remainder that she was not _actually_ preternaturally perfect, something he of all people would know – but despite her evident tangibility, she was very good at _convincing_ people to join into her personal little bubble of reality.

 

“Yeah.” she admitted. “There's many characters that I still haven't got memorized.”

With that, she had admitted a weakness – Perhaps as a sign of camaraderie or an attempt to open up toward him.

But as it stands, her pride did not allow for such an admission without being followed by a statement that immediately clarified her superiority over the Third Child: “I really should have taken a course on it back in college...”

“College?”

“Yup, I graduated last year.” she lied. While her private teachers back home had assured her that she was far ahead of her peers, such a thing was completely impossible and outright ridiculous under most if not all of Europe's current educational systems, no matter how much of a genius you were, but if that credulous dunce was willing to believe her, she might as well bask in the stumped, incredulously-impressed look in his eyes, before she'd be forced to reveal that she had possibly been downplaying her language problems.

Japanese was easy-peasy as far as the grammar and pronunciation went, but playtime was definitely over once you got around to _reading it_ or writing it down – it was all because of those stupid impractical letters!

“By the way, what was that problem even supposed to be about?”

“Thermal expansion.”

“Thermal expansion?” she repeated. “That's practically for babies! It means that things get bigger when they heat up, and when they cool down, they become small again!”

Did she really think he was _that_ stupid?

She was probably just making fun of him.

There was no way she would ever take him seriously... it was hopeless.

No wonder that she saw him as total joke, being a ...college graduate... and all that.

The way things were going, he'd never get anywhere near having a degree even as an adult.

He flat out didn't have a chance.

“I- I get that, but...”

Meanwhile, on the other side of the existential chasm, Asuka had had enough.

She'd gone and helped that idiot out, and this was the thanks she got?

Why wasn't he... reacting to her?

Besides staring, which pretty much anyone could do.

How much more obvious could she possibly make it?

Should she walk up to him and outright say, “Hey, Daddy's boy, look at my boobs!”?

He wasn't exactly doing a good job at pretending he was not interested.

All he did was talk about that stupid school stuff, like it was somehow more interesting than her.

Alright. This called for some bold measures.

“Hey, do you think my breasts would grow a little more if I were to warm them with my hands?”

To leave her intentions absolutely clear, she cupped her chest with her hands and gave her breast a little squeeze, so that dear old daddy's boy would have a clear example of what she wanted him to do.

“H-how should I know...” he stammered, lacking any strategies to deal with her overt sexual provocation and feeling daunted by the confidence she exuded as far as her body was concerned. “I don't know anything about that...”

Shinji had reached his limit – while he'd been looking until now, this was the point where he averted his eyes and tried his best to think about fat pensioners and cold showers.

Heaven knows what ….might have happened.... if he hadn't.

The hormones in his blood were practically coming to a boil at this point.

“You're such a bore!” Asuka complained with a distinct pout, sounding almost a little dejected or insulted.

Without wasting another second of her life on her fellow pilot, she walked off.

Why... hadn't he done anything?

Had she just been given the brush-off? How dare he...!

What could she possibly have done wrong?

Was there something he didn't like?

Was it the lack of a tan? The red head? Boobs too small? Hips too chubby?

Why wouldn't he look at her?

Why wouldn't anyone ever notice her?

 

Ah, misunderstandings! The bane that made the flow of feelings from heart to heart so difficult. Burning hearts that moved past each other without an understanding!

In actuality, the contents of Shinji's head were rather different from what Asuka had expected there.

Much like her, he was in the process of lamenting his own ineptitude, though his downcast look was a lot more noticeable.

He might not have guessed her intentions, but he'd heard the judgment she had passed on him very very clearly: 'Such a bore'.

Apparently, he wasn't even good as a victim for cruel jokes – for it's not like he could have seen her provocations as anything else, as nothing about her overall behavior suggested that she would ever seriously flirt with her – Given that she'd even started the conversation with a remark about his stupidity, that was simply not something that would ever occur to him as a real possibility.

He knew his place.

All he felt, all his pining and longings... were things she'd never know of.

All his dreams, fantasies and desires would stay just that.

From where he was standing, Asuka was completely unattainable.

The fires of his feelings would probably stay his very own private ache, and not just as far as Asuka was concerned, for there was quite a lot that could not be attained by a person like him.

The afterglow of heat and redness in his face had been in the process of fading when it was given new reason to burn by the sight of another girl, who'd drawn his attention with a gentle splashing sound.

 _Ayanami Rei_.

He'd heard the steps and splashes suggesting that someone else had entered this place, but he'd been to busy with his schoolwork to notice any details.

Half consciously, he might have assumed that it was just another random NERV employee, but now, he saw that it was _her_.

She was leaning forward to get something from her bag, allowing him a a good glimpse of her pristine –

He forced himself to look away.

This was different from Asuka's case, she knew what she was doing and had deliberately displayed herself with deliberate intent, but Rei seemed to lack a sense for that sort of thing.

Even I she didn't mind, taking advantage of that seemed like a crooked thing to do.

And besides, unlike his flatmate, she seemed to have a minimal level of respect for him, so the least he could do was to return it in kind.

Though his noble resolutions were not so easy to keep – Rei was back to standing upright by now and busy drying off her hair, her expression serious and stoic, so that he could only view the numinous beauty contained in her body from the back.

It took him a bit on a deliberate effort to look at her face now, but in the end, it was what he really wanted to see.

What he felt towards _her_ was a deeper emotional bond that went beyond teenage lust.

When he looked at her, he felt a deep fascination and a wish to become a part of her world and find out what her crimson eyes believed in.

Except that he'd been used to full capacity as of late, having much to worry about especially now that he also had Asuka to deal with, so he could not really claim to have come all that much closer to Rei.

One advance he could make right here and now was to note that she wasn't wearing the uniform swimsuit that he'd seen her at school with, but a minimalistic white model that didn't particular flaunt her shapely curves but allowed them to speak for themselves for that precise reason.

She owned her very own swimsuit – which was notable given that he didn't think he'd seen her wear any article of private clothing before, it was only ever uniforms, be it at school or at NERV.

If she bothered to get her very own swimsuit, she must really like swimming.

After all, she hadn't been invited here, either, she had just coincidentally been here at the same time, which would have been very unlikely to happen if her presence here had not been a fairly common occurrence. It wasn't unlikely that she came here on a regular basis.

It seemed strange to have found a similarity between people as different as Rei and Asuka, apart from their faible for swimming and their above-average intelligence and their status as EVA pilots, they were very much each other's total opposites in their words, deeds, looks and personalities.

And well, another commonality would have been that they were both rather attractive, yet way out of his league.

In fact, if he were to be an animal compared to Asuka, then Rei existed in a completely different sphere altogether, that he couldn't even begin to comprehend the basic rules of, and he was to her as a microbe was to his person...

 

Lost in his distant admirations, he'd overlooked the third person left in the room, and Asuka did not take kindly to it.

The timing after her perceived rejection had been pretty bad, and so, the First Child, whom she didn't appear to be too fond of in the first place, ended up as the scapegoat of her rage.

That damned little Favorite!

She didn't just consider herself too good for her, no, she seemed to be looking for a fight.

As if it wasn't bad enough to have to put up with her as a rival EVA pilot, Asuka was beginning to realize that she might be facing a challenge in a rather different area.

Not that she particularly cared about 'winning' Shinji over – what would she even want with him? - it was the challenge that she couldn't tolerate.

She couldn't believe that she'd caught him staring at that unkempt, sickly antisocial girl after spurning her like that – who did either of these two think they were?

What did that miserable girl have that Asuka didn't have double?

She'd had enough of her, once and for all.

This means war!

She'd show that bitch just how little effort it would take her to trump someone like her.

Certain of victory, she masked her wrath with faked confidence and her diving gear.

“Over here, daddy's boy! Look! Backroll entryyy! _”_

 

Typical.

Of course she always had to be the center of attention.

With a sigh, Shinji sank down onto his chair.

He wasn't used to having so many pretty girls around, it could even get exhausting at times. (and that included Misato.)

It was all new, and he didn't really know how to handle it, any more than the changes he was beginning to notice in his own body.

He mostly felt overwhelmed, honestly.

It wasn't like there was any chance in the world that either of them would ever end up as his girlfriend or anything, even before one even considered such idle fantasies, it was pretty clear that he didn't measure up to them in any way.

 

_______________

  1. The predictions of doom might just end up becoming a great deal more tangible in chapter 2.09: [Amazon Complex, Part II]; After that we'll have topped up the first proper story arc of act II.

  2. The suit from ep 10 might have been considered scandalous in the 90s but we're in the 21st century now, so imagine her buying the bikini from that one artwork where you see her in a beach chair alongside Rei and Mari.

  3. I must praise Anno for being realistic with a typical problem of bilingual upbringing, which is that you might not learn how to _write_ the language of the country you didn't grow up in. I can confirm this from personal experience.

  4. But I must chide him for thinking that “graduated college at 13” is in any way realistic or can be used as a throwaway characteristic that is never brought up again and doesn't have huge repercussions/ be an integral part of the character. Take that from someone who's actually skipped 2 years in school and got their abitur at age 17, that is just not how it works. I deliberately kept it ambiguous as I don't want to take away too much from what the character was supposed to be but it's just too ludicrous for me to stomach.

  5. I have come to realize that just by the stats, this is technically my most successful fanfic to date, not counting Old Shames deleted in a rage many years ago before coming to regret it (These are precious childhood memories ^^), so, uh, thanks everyone? I'll do my best to stay on the ball.

  6. I think at the time I first wrote this 'apocalyptic dream' intended something like a failed SEELE impact or some other absolute worst case, but it could as well be seen as a regular dream informed/inspired by the 'situation', a manifestation of guilt, fear and nihilism and I have come to find that option more interesting. Aesthetic wise I wanted to inject a little Ulquiorra into this.

  7. The rest of the chapter hasn't aged well as a whole, tho, it has good parts but also kind of silly ones that could have gone better.




 


	27. 08: [Amazon Complex, Part II]

**09: [Amazon Complex, Part II]**

 

**\---**

 

_Primadonna girl, yeah_ __  
_all i ever wanted was the world_ __  
_i can't help that i need it all_ __  
_the primadonna life, the rise, the fall_ __  
_you say that i'm kinda difficult_ __  
_but it's always someone else's fault_ __  
_got you wrapped around my finger babe_ __  
_you can count on me to misbehave_ __  
  
_Primadonna girl_ __  
_Would you do anything for me?_ __  
_buy a big diamond ring for?_ __  
_would you get to down on your knees for me?_ __  
_pop that pretty question, right now baby_ __  
  
_Beauty queen on a silver screen_ __  
_living life like i'm in a dream_ __  
_i know i've got a big ego_ _  
_ _i really don't know why it's such a big deal though_

_And i'm sad to the core, core, core_  
every day's such a chore, chore, chore  
when you give, i want more, more, more  
i wanna be adored  
  
Cause i'm a primadonna girl, yeah  
all i ever wanted was the world  
i can't help that i need it all  
the primadonna life, the rise, the fall  
you say that i'm kinda difficult  
but it's always someone else's fault  
got you wrapped around my finger babe  
you can count on me to misbehave  
  
Primadonna girl  
  
fill the void up with celluloid  
take a picture, i'm with the boys  
get what i want cause i ask for it  
not because i'm really that deserving of it  
living life like i'm in a play  
in the limelight i want to stay  
i know i've got a big ego  
i really don't know why it's such a big deal though 

 

****-Marina & The Diamonds, 'Primadonna'** **

 

\---  
  
  


It was on the afternoon of that same day when the battle that Yui had announced began to shadow the Katsuragi household with the portents of its imminence. 

The first sign to alarm the 14 year old boy was the shrill ringing of the phone, a sharp, ever-repeating noise that grated on the nerves and broke the forced silence in their living room.

The first words from the receiver had barely touched Misatos ears when her casual cheerfulness evaporated away, leaving only determined severity. And once Shinji had seen this, it didn't take h long to understand that something must be going on, no matter how quickly Misato had reverted to her usual relaxed cheer once she put down the phone. 

Something must have happened, and she seemingly preferred not to tell them yet as to not worry them before it was strictly necessary. She did everything in her power to avoid disturbing the normalcy that she felt particularly indebted to give them after canceling their school trip. All she told them was that she'd been ordered to headquarters in order to look at some unusual readings, carefully inviting the mistaken impression that she might have meant their latest synchronization test data, or something similar to it. The two of them were to stay home, where they would be easy to contact or find in case their presence would be required, though she assured them that it was most likely nothing, and that they would do better to continue doing what Misato had ordered them to do anyways: Study. 

Shinji immediately expected the worst and attempted to mentally prepare himself for battle, trying in vain to assemble the memories of whatever it was Yui had told him. 

He ought to have seen this coming even without her presence. 

He would probably have to fight again – so far, he hadn't said anything to the girl sitting next to him, leaving her the blissful ignorance whose benefit he so rarely received and barely took note of the way she kept calling him a meek, obedient little doormat and a 'good kid', or her declaration about how Misato wasn't the boss of her (especially when she wasn't home), cumulating in her storming off to her room to devote herself to 'the important things in life'. Like the adult she purported to be, she actually counted school among those things, but she was too proud to spend any more time forced to be in the same room as him, doing the same activity. 

She was too ambitious to tolerate further failures, and the way she kept occasionally emerging from her room to ask for the significance of an usual letter likewise indicated that she was studying exactly as she was supposed to. 

He kept answering her questions with nods, head shakes and one liners, but despite his best intentions, he did not succeed in completing a single sentence on the worksheet he had been trying to solve thus far – Flooded by the cocktail of chemicals that denoted an uncertain premonition, his fingers refused to hold the pen steady.

He couldn't form a clear thought, each world was an ordeal to put down, and his thoughts drifted in every sub-clause. 

Finally, his premonition was confirmed and his inaction excused when Misato ran back to the apartment over an hour later. 

They were to follow her to headquarters immediately and told to expect a battle. Rei was already informed and on her way.

Misato had come straight for a nearby seismologic institute – If one built their cities on a little chain of islands under which several tectonic plates ground past each other, one did well to meticulously survey every single volcano in the land, unless you wanted to wake up to find unexpected lava melting your front lawn. 

After the far-reaching Earthquakes a few years ago, the surveillance of the geologic processes had only become  _more_ painstaking, and thus it shouldn't have been surprising when an usual shadow inside a volcano did not remain unnoticed. 

The picture had been blurry, but it did mean that there was a solid body in a lake of molten rock, where the heat and the pressure should have been able to liquify just about anything. 

Once Misato had taken over the institute with Hyuuga in tow and subjected the 'shadow' to a closer look by means of a research probe that had imploded moments after the images were taken, their suspicions were confirmed: It was an angel.

“But... there was no alarm...” Shinji commented once he'd taken in the news.

“It wasn't necessary. The angel currently miles away from any inhabited areas, and it doesn't seem like it's going anywhere – Ritsuko thinks that it's in some kind of embryonic stage. Asuka, remember how you asked why we can't attack the angels before they attack us? 

Maybe we can.”

The redheaded girl erupted in a large grin.

That was just  _perfect!_ For once, something good had happened on this rotten day. 

There it was, the much-welcome change, her chance to show everyone what she was made of. 

  
  


Immediately, Misato instructed the two Children to come with her. Before they'd even gotten to the elevator, she'd pulled out her phone and contacted headquarters. 

If Shinji wasn't mistaken, the one who answered was that one technician with the long hair – Aoba, wasn't it? Hyuuga's voice was somewhat higher. 

“Contact the commander and tell him that we need an authorization for an A-17.”

“Be careful what you say! This is not a secure line!”

“I know, that's why you have to call me back on the secure line as soon as possible...”

  
  


\----  
  


An A-17? That woman had quite the stomach if she would propose an action of such ramifications so easily, treating even his authorization like a mere formality she could take for granted.

Nonetheless, Ikari appreciated her.

She was always ready to use all methods at her disposal, and despite her at times unorthodox methods, she tended to carry out her assignments with reliable efficiency.

She had the kind of unfettered all-or-nothing mentality that the people of these dark times could not afford to lack.

“Are you honestly considering to allow it?” Fuyutsuki asked, doing a bad job at hiding his disbelief after the expected 'Of course not' had failed to materialize.

“Yes, I will.”

“But, Ikari...”

“Captain Katsuragi's proposition comes at a convenient time for us. There is a hypothesis I have been meaning to confirm for a while...”

 

\----

 

“An A-17? You mean a preemptive strike?”

“Exactly.” Ikari affirmed, a bold-faced statement free of hesitation, digressions, justifications or Euphemisms.

He was fearless as he confronted the dark monoliths that represented his superiors, with his right-hand man stoically standing at his side.

“That is far too dangrous.” the American representative clarified. “Have you perhaps forgotten what happened 15 years ago?”

“We have been presented with an unprecedented chance, and I intend to use it. So far, we have only been defending ourselves. Now, we have a chance to attack.”

“It's not worth the risk.” Keel decided, intending for that statement to end the conversation.

It might not look like it, but –

Now, Ikari had them exactly where he wanted them – It was true that the circumstances of the Second Impact had involved the disturbing of a seemingly inactive creature with the fruit of life at its disposal, but there were large disparities in several other variables, and it wasn't like they were attempting this for the first time.

“But clearly, you must understand how valuable it would be for us to obtain a new test subject – A living angel. The projects that failed in Bethany Bay could be continued with the more experienced personnel at headquarters. After all the complaints we received from you about the incident, I'm surprised that you did not authorize the operation at once.

After all, we do not have any more angel test subjects, do we?”

Ikari wished he could see their faces, the slight flinches, the expressions in their eyes; But their brief silence had told him enough.

Had they learned something in Bethany Base that they didn't want him and his affiliates to discover? Did they thing a captive angel would effort him some strategic benefit?

Or did they actually have access to further captive angels?

Was there something going on in Bethany Base that was not meant for his ears?

He'd already found out that the Marduk Project had attempted to fit the serpentine creature with a kind of entry plug in hopes of controlling it as you would an EVA – perhaps by the fourth child or some other nebulous figures. If it had worked, it would have rendered obsolete a few things that Gendo's plan was still forced to rely upon and undermined the monopoly of knowledge and power that controlling headquarters was supposed to grand him – besides, allowing the angel to escape provided a suitable smokescreen for his acquisition of the key, all of which contributed to his decision to have the place sabotaged.

Now, however, his gut feeling was beginning to conclude that Bethan Base had merely been the tip of the iceberg, and that was without getting into the mysteries that were the ever elusive EVAs 06 and 08....

But regardless of the larger web of connections he was treading in, in this particular circumstance, he had asked the right question: It was evident when Keel chose to acquiesce rather than take the risk of answering it: “Failure will not be tolerated.”

Then, the monoliths faded, and the two men of NERV found themselves standing in a large hall with green walls, a holographic chamber.

Though he'd suffered through the conversation with stiff-lipped stoicism, Fuyutsuki's subdued outrage became apparent once he was free to speak his mind: “He won't _tolerate_ it? Doesn't he realize that a failure would mean the end of humanity?”

He wasn't too sure about his immediate superior, either, given that he rarely granted him the benefit of an answer.

“Are you really sure, Ikari?”

The commander merely grinned a thin, concealed grin in the space under his gloved hands.

No matter what experiments they would perform on this particular angel, this time, the results would unfailingly find their way to his desk, and he would learn what it was that the old men were so cautiously hiding from him.

 

\---

 

“An A-17?” Looking at his bleached-blonde superior and her young aide, Mitsurugi Minoru bore a slightly puzzled expression, as if some minor inconsistency were slightly confusing him. “So, you want to destroy the angel before it reaches full maturity?”

“Not quite. The Commander intends to capture it. You were involved in the design and construction of Bethany Bases's Cocytus system, which makes you the most qualified expert on this subject. For the duration of this mission, you will act as bridge personnel. We are also requesting your aid in the design of the capture system.”

“It is an honor, Ma'am.” the dark-haired man answered, his expression hardening into a serious understanding contrary to his usual jovial manner. “I will do my best, but surely you realize that we are looking at some very different challenges here. For the Third Angel, we excavated it in place within its eggshell and built our base around it. For this mission, we are looking for a measure that will hold the angel secure and free of disturbance even while we transport it over long distances.”

“It seems like it will be a lot harder to _catch_ an angel rather than just destroy it...” Ibuki reported. “For all we know, even the slightest touch or jolt could result in a tragedy...”

“Then the best approach would be not to touch it at all.” Mitsurugi opined. “I suggest that we use some kind of optical pliers. From what I've read about the characteristics of the angels' constituent matter, they should make that approach even simpler.”

“Optical pliers?” Ibuki asked.

The words seemed to mean a great deal more to Dr. Akagi: “Like what you use for experiments with microscopic complexes such as nanostructures?”

“Exactly. It's commonly applied to things that are too small to be touched, but in principle we should be able to apply it to other objects that we can't mechanically touch if we amplify it to sufficient energies. I was thinking about modifying a couple of industrial laser...”

“That won't work. Two poles won't be enough, that would be far too bumpy and imprecise. We'd somehing like a cage...”

“But that would drive up our power consumption and energy densities, especially if you consider that the materials we can use are limited by the conditions inside the volcano. We can forget about stable superconductors in there.”

“And if we used a solenoid?” Ibuki suggested. “Or we might... vary the frequencies.”

“Very good, Maya!”

The young technician blushed at Dr. Akagi's sudden praise.

“This could work! Have the Magi run the calculations right away, we need to hurry. No one knows when exactly the angel is going to hatch, and Katsuragi should be just about to arrive here with the children...”

 

\---

 

“ _That's_ an angel?”

If Shinji were forced to describe the bizarre being on the shadow theatre-like shot, he'd have felt uncomfortably reminded of a human infant. It's skeleton had hands and feet, down to the toes and all five fingers. It's uncanny resemblance to human appearance left a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach .

As usual, Dr. Akagi didn't seem fazed as she cooly explained the plan in a businesslike fashion: “Exactly. It appears to be in an immature state, like a chrysalis. The primary objective of this operation is to capture the target alive and as close to intact as possible. ”

“And if that doesn't work out?” asked Asuka, to whom 'capture it alive' sounded rather boring. The scientist's ruby lips told her exactly what she wanted to hear: “In that case, it must be destroyed immediately. Is everything clear?”

“Yes.” the trio assured.

“Alright then. Which of you will carry out the operation?”

This was the precise moment that Shinji had dreaded, while Asuka had been brimming with anticipation.

It almost frightened him to see Captain Shikinami cheerfully raising her arm and calling out without any regard for his nearby ear drums: “Me! Pick me! Please let me do it, I _love_ diving!”

That naive girl... didn't she understand what might happen to her during that crazy undertaking, all the ways it could go wrong?

Yet, this was another wholly new experience for Shinji – would this fight possibly be dealt with without him? Would he actually be spared, no need for him to suffer, nor any chance for Yui's warnings to come true after he'd spent this last three minutes scrambling to retrieve them from memory?

He didn't know whether to feel relieved or dissapointed that they wouldn't have any use for him. But either way, he didn't quite trust this supposed respite. In the end, he was bound to get stuck with all the unpleasant tasks, like all the times before – He might as well be cursed.

Except that whatever demon had enacted that curse seemed to have taken the day off:

“Asuka. You will do it.”

Wide eyed, Shinji marveled at the words.

That was a wholly new experience, to have someone not just willing, but _eager_ to bear the burden in his stead.

“YEAH!” she exclaimed. “It will be child's play!”

Shinji would never understand this girl. What kind of person would ever _rejoice_ at the prospect of having to jump into an active volcano?

Right – Yui had said something about volcanoes as well. - 'Volcano means Volcano', as she'd put it. In hindsight, he should have realized back then that she'd meant a real, physical volcano.

But hadn't she also spoken of 'jumping inside' and 'saving' someone?

The way things were going, the one to jump into it would be Asuka.

Perhaps the future wasn't fixed yet.

At least, Shinji wanted to believe that quite badly.

“And what role would I play in the operation?” Ayanami inquired, once it became apparent that the discussion was about to end without a mention of her name.

Ibuki explained how the special equipment required to withstand the volcano was incompatible with the prototype, which had been repaired but still remained untested.

“You will stay behind at headquarters until further notice.”

“Understood.” Rei affirmed. If she was in any way disappointed, it was not discernible in her expression.

Despite this, it seemed obvious to Asuka that having to stay behind was tantamount to being slighted, and seeing the First Child on the receiving end filled her heart with glee: For once, that arrogant bitch would be shown where her place is, and how thoroughly useless and obsolete she was as the pilot roster's fifth wheel.

That would teach her to drop her haughty act in the future – but of course, Asuka would not neglect the vhance to rub some more salt in her wounds, just to make sure.

This day may have had a sobering beginning, but it was about to get better and better.

“Poor wondergirl!” she mocked, affecting a superficial farce of a friendly tone as she leaned forward with a provocative grin in order to look past Shinji's frame. “You'll miss all the fun!”

“Since we don't know how much time we have left until the angel emerges, we have to depart as soon as possible. Get ready.”

 

\----

 

For Asuka and the other Children, to 'get ready' meant to get dressed and make their way to the cages – this mission, however, would require special equipment and particular preparations for a variety of reasons.

Among other things, Dr. Akagi had prepared a new suit for her.

But once it had adjusted herself to the shapes of her body, Asuka could hardly tell what was supposed to be so special about it. The rubber appeared to be marginally thicker, but would that really make a difference?  
“I don't get it.” the Second Child stated, intending to inquire about it just to be sure as she looked down at herself with a searching gaze. “I know this is supposed to be a heat protection suit, but it feels no different from the regular one.”

Dr. Akagi simply instructed her to try pressing the button on the other wrist.

But even if the scientist had possesed the necessary tact to at least warn the unsuspecting girl, nothing could have prepared her for the horrific process she would cause by pressing that button.

It was probably the wet dream of anyone with a weight gain fetish – The girl, who had painstakingly kept her body at the widely accepted ideal size through a regime of calorie-counting an exercise was forced to watch as her breasts, stomach and thighs appeared to swell up until she resembled a living Christmas tree bauble which barely fit between the rows of lockers in the pilots' changing room.

“Ahhh! What the hell is this supposed to be?!” she exclaimed, aghast for obvious reasons.

But Dr. Akagi was nowhere near finished with her torture session: “...Unit two should be ready as well...”

 

\----

 

“HELL NO! What is the meaning of this?!”

The scientist had just led Asuka to a gigantic, clunky white thing that resembled an unfortunate crossbreed between a toy robot and an astronaut.

“This is the D type armor for operations under extreme conditions. It's shielded against heat, pressure and radiation.”

Except that Asuka wouldn't have cared if that getup would have made her completely invulnerable – None of it would change how extremely _uncool_ it looked. And to think that she'd been looking forward to this assignment!

“Is this really my unit two?”

The head section that could be seen beyond the 'helmet visor' seemed to suggest that this was the case.... as if that was even the worst! With this monstrosity of a suit, she looked so fat that her hair following the bulk of its backside rather than hanging down like usual.

No!

She wouldn't suffer this humiliation for anything in the world.

A woman ought to have her dignity and priorities these days. As far as the pudding suit let her, Asuka made an attempt to place her hands on her hips.

“UNACCEPTABLE! I won't do it! I'd rather die than walk around in public as a living balloon! Just take Daddy's boy over there!” she demanded, pointing her outstretched arm at the conveniently nearby Third Child, whose expression and posture visibly faltered in the face of her apparent depreciation. “He's more suited to this kind of job to begin with!”

_Great._

There we go again. O, Third Childe, cometh and solveth the problem, as I doth not give a fuck! When would this girl finally realize that this wasn't a game? It was just like with the school trip – She seemed to think that she could get away with being an EVA pilot only when it was convenient for her.

It wasn't like he didn't like Asuka – quite the opposite – but that didn't change that she _really_ frustrated him at times.

Fortunately for Shinji, there was someone present whom they hadn't noticed yet, someone who had a pretty good understanding of the vain redhead, and decided to take a shot at motivating her: “That's unfortunate! I had been looking forward to seeing you in action!”

But the unshaven operative's well-intentioned effort ended up backfiring, resulting only in Asuka's swift escape from the hall, leading her to hide in the entrace to the corridor through which she had just arrived.

“Oh no! I can't let my dear Kaji-san see me like this under any circumstance!”

 

“This could be a problem.”

“It looks that way.” Dr. Akagi conceded to her assistant. Shinji soon understood that there was no helping it – He _would_ inevitably end up stuck with it after all...

“Alright, then I will-”

“I will go. I can pilot unit two as well.”

Shinji didn't know if she simply did this because she regarded it as her duty and was beholden to the same laws of common sense as he was, or if she had recalled him describing his fears and therefore sought to spare him further combat, but this was the second time that another hand had shot up before his did, ready to absolve him of what he still dreaded, even if he had since resolved to grin and bear it.

This time, his savior was Ayanami whose white-gloved hand volunteered for his grim fate.

But none of this sat very well with Asuka – Suddenly she realized that her role as an EVA pilot was about to be supplanted by that obedient little bitch, and it rekindled all too recent displeasure – It was one thing to demand that Shinji take over an embarassing task she considered beneath her; That was a choice of her own free will.

But she couldn't have that antisocial little puppet going around acting as if she could replace her like some piece of broken machinery, leaving her standing there like the sort of petulant toddler she couldn't stand to resemble for anything on this earth... To boot, the First had to time it in such a way that the Third Child would doubtlessly see as an invitation to be as cowardly as he felt like, yeah right, go and coddle him, as if he weren't already enough of a wimp.

_Hell no._

Deathly insulted, Asuka ceased the half-step she'd already taken toward the door and turned toward that brainless little favorite and the stupid Third Child, who, as usual, did nothing.

Had she spoken of war before?

No, _NOW_ was truly the moment when that bitch made the great Captain Shikinami into an enemy –

She'd show her!

She'd teach her better than to disrespect her like that!

Leaving Shinji no time to react with anything but an expression that was somewhere between baffled and disconcerted at the sudden and, in his opinion, disproportionate display of hostility, Asuka had moved at lightning speeds, in order to show the commander’s little princess to keep her hands to herself with one fast, brusque act.

Taking up her direct line of sight, forcing that antisocial brat to look directly into her eyes to make sure she understood: _“Over my dead body!_ Sorry, but before you let the First Child into the entry plug of _my_ EVA 02, I'd rather do it myself!”

 

“I know it looks bad, but don't you worry!” she told the Evangelion, her only remaining friend among this faithless lot. “We'll get you out of there real soon!”

 

\----

 

Mere minutes after that, both EVAs had been shot into the sky on board their desinated transport planes, though EVA 02 required a special harness due to its special equipment, with the result that they spent the trip hanging in the air in a rather stupid-looking manner, exposed for all to see – not exactly how one would imagine the day-to-day life of earth's valiant defender.

It was some relief that most of the bothersome preparations had been taken care of by the time they reached the provisional base – they had already picked out a ravine at whose bottom one could see the magma glowing. The surface appeared more viscous than really liquid, since the material began to cool where it was exposed to the air, but that thin layer, more akin to the skin of a homemade pudding than anything else, would be easily disposed of by means of a modified industrial laser, or so the white coats said.

Thus, they had assembled some semblance of a crane above the lacuna, from which Asuka would then be lowered by a steel wire affixed to the power cable and no less than five coolant ducts.

They wasted no time in hanging her onto the conduit and preemptively placed the cage intended for the angel into the heat armor's pincer-like hands – it was a strange feeling to direct those wholly mechanical parts, her hands felt a little numb, as if she were missing something – She much preferred the Evangelion's “regular” hands.

Meanwhile, EVA 01 basically spent the time uselessly squatting next to the base, looking down the narrow fissure – The Third Child was supposed to stay put in case anything went wrong, possibly as a backup – They'd even brought a second D-type suit with them, though they had refrained from placing the purple EVA in it, in case that the battle would need to be fought on the surface.

It was strange... so far, the angels had all come from the sea, hadn't they? And... what was it that Yui had said?

Something about how he wouldn't need to do very much but should keep himself ready to jump in order to 'save her'? Did she mean to tell him that something would go wrong and that he'd have to interfere?

Or would it work just as well without him in the end?

Either way, all springs in his internal clockwork were tightened to the max.

Oh, if only he'd never been foolish enough to wish to know the future – his chances and expectations had never been rosy one way or another, but at least he could have hope if he couldn't see his doom coming.... and could Yui possibly have been any more vague and imprecise?

That Asuka did not seem afraid or otherwise affected by the events in the slightest just increased his own nervousness further. She appeared to him like a naive little girl who was, well, obliviously stepping over the ledge of a volcano. Whoever needs metaphors when reality itself was already momentous enough.

He'd like to protect her somehow, or at least stick close to her, but how was he to do that when she would be carrying out the operation several hundred meters below him? They had only _one_ crane.

Unfortunately, the number of Asuka's worries was no greater than that of the cranes:

“Where did Kaji-san go?”

“That _idiot_ is nowhere near here!” Misato clarified. “And what would he even be doing here? He belong neither to the technicians nor to the operations division.”

“Oooooh.” Asuka lamented. “And I'd hoped that he could finally see me in action!”

_Wow. Were those the most serious worries in the blissful lives of the elite?_

Or perhaps, Shinji thought, he was just jealous.

 

\----

 

In Kaji's defense, his original intention had been to observe his former ward's heroics just as he'd previously announced it. But then, he'd received an important phone call insisting on a meeting that could be neither canceled nor postponed – his contact person from the ministry of interior would not wait, and given that her superiors were unlikely to be all too pleased with the recent events, he would not try her patience.

The meeting took place in a ropeway carriage, and each of the two people sitting across each other on its opposite ends knew better than to assume that the other person trusted them.

Correspondingly, they did not even bother to look each other in the eye.

“You're aware that an A-17 also entails the freezing of all current assets?”

“And I figure that means trouble for a lot of people?” Kaji inquired, seemingly relaxed.

The lady from the ministry, who'd arrived in her pink blouse and accompanied by a small puppy, retained a polite, friendly tone, but wasn't shy when it came to voicing her main point of criticism: “Why didn't you stop this from happening?”

“I had no pretext to excuse it with. The order comes from the very top, and the committee has already agreed.”

“But, if you consider that a failure on part of NERV would mean the end of humanity...-”

“Don't worry. They're not _that_ arrogant.”

Though the lady across him did not wholly believe him and, at the sight of his casual grin, wondered if it wasn't _him_ who was blinded by overconfidence (He might claim to be on their side and act a lot more approachable and just plain _normal,_ he was still one of _them_ : A person who was involved with the Evangelions), his statements _did_ have a reason behind them, or rather, _a_ reason, one particular measure that had been prepared in the name of safety. When he told her of it, her smile faded – As Kaji put it, NERV's commander was rather thorough and not at all the type to do anything half-baked – Something his son was about to learn when he first noticed that measure as a distant glittering in the sky.

 

“What is that?”he asked, somewhat surprised.

The answer came over intercom from the pavilion under which Dr. Akagi, Ibuki and Mitsurugi senior were currently tinkering with the tangled cables connected to the EM cage's local measuring instruments.

It was the former who spoke to him in her usual curt, cold tones:

“The UN air force. They are to remain on alert above us until the end of the operation.”

“Then they're here to support us?” Asuka asked with an excitement that, in hindsight, reflected her naivety. Dr. Akagi could only muster a cynical smile at the children's lack of suspicion. 'Support' was probably what would be written on the official powers, but the fake blonde chose to see the reality of the situation with a little more discernment: “Something like that. They're here to clean up the aftermath.”

“If we fail.” Ibuki added, for the sake of clarity.

The sliver of anxiety in her voice was anything but a good omen.

“Meaning... what?”

“In case the operation fails, they are going to drop an N² mine and burn everything down here along with the angel. ...and of course, us, too.” Ritsuko explained nonchalantly.

Once again, the young girl which Asuka truly was could be seen shining through: “That's terrible!”

She was right. As far as Shinji's own life was concerned, they could go ahead and burn it out for all he cared – and they would do it anyway whether he cared or not – but Asuka, Misato, Dr. Akagi... all the technicians, including Nagato's father, who couldn't be the only one here who still had family waiting at home or even children to be fed. After all, most of the children in his school worked for NERV. Who dared to place human lives on weighing scales as if they were no better than potatoes?

Shinji immediately felt his anger rising up, not just for his own sake, but because he felt that someone ought to demand justice for the girl that was about to take a death-defying plunge into an active volcano. He couldn't shake the feeling that this bitter cup was not supposed to have passed him by, as if Asuka were down there in his stead.

She didn't even seem to comprehend the gravity of the situation, not to mention that this was the first time she would be deploying on her own.

“Who would give that kind of order?!” he demanded to know, a hard, edgy note of outrage permeating his otherwise boyish voice.

This turned out to be another piece of information that the scientist ended up delivering without moving any part of her face other than her mouth: “Commander Ikari.”

Shinji was distinctly shocked... and wondered why.

Why would he still be surprised whenever that man treated him and others like exchangeable tools? As long as he still had Rei, his son could go straight to hell for all he cared. And Asuka?

The Third Child would be surprised if that man even knew her name.

Rei was ostensibly important for him, Shinji himself was the one with the best track record so far, but the Second Child most likely meant no more to him than a fully interchangeable pawn...

That measly bastard, sitting up hair in his chair, sticking his fingers into each other and delighting in ordering others around and leaving them to do his dirty work without as much as lifting a finger. That damned phony! Whenever Shinji began to hope that there was, perhaps, a decent person beneath his cold veneer, he'd do something to remind Shinji of just how little he cared for his son's feelings.

But what would expect of someone who had no qualms using his own wife as a test subject or forcing his only son into piloting a horrifying war machine?

But no matter how hot his rage burned on the inside, the emotions of a 14 year old boy were no excuse that the greater world; They would not slow time or win the fight, no matter how much he wanted to be outraged or have somewhere to vent – The show must go on, and right now, the schedule called for the start of operations.

Listening to the intercom reports, he watched as they used a laser to blast an entry hole into the topmost, partially solidified layer of lava and began to lower Asuka into it, feeling somewhat churned despite his earlier attempts to master himself.

Yui's words, which he'd thought he'd successfully puzzled together, seemed to slip from the grasp of his restless mind like the recollection of a dream fading fast in the morning hours.

 

With every meter crossed between Asuka and the hellish maw beneath her , he wanted to kick and scream and ask why they were doing this to her and just why exactly the girl of his dreams needed to be thrown into a volcano this badly.

Some part of him wanted to plead and beg to go in her stead, so that at the very least, the human life being lost would be an unimportant, weak person and not such a beautiful, successful individual who'd doubtlessly had a bright future ahead of her – but it was far too late for that, and even if he had the guts to make that offer at loud, she would refuse it.

 

She'd only just assured them that she was ready to go, but the very way she'd said it, like it was the most stupid question she had heard in her life was the most evident reason to disbelieve her.

Even after she'd just learned of her superiors' callousness, she still lacked all of the appropriate concern this situation should have warranted, and that was probably the worst of it all.

“Eeek! That looks really hot!” she commented, as if she were speaking of appearance of some random gross kitchen implement she had no choice but to clean if she wanted her allowance.

Her usual overconfidence took mere seconds to return, further emboldened by her drive to be the center of attention and the chance that had presented itself with her first solo mission. “Hey Shinji! Look over this! GIANT STROKE ENTRY!”

He could only sigh as the Earth's glowing blood swallowed her up.

If only she'd be more careful.

Feeling rather useless, the Third Child could do nothing but watch as an ever greater length of cable vanished toward the earth's core, whilst the technicians kept reading out the steadily rising depth.

This continued for a long while in which nothing concrete happened as the Second Child was lowered further and further into the Earth, which only served to elucidate just _how_ far down she would be operating. Separated from her by more than a kilometer's worth of molten rock, they would be laughably incapable of getting her out of there, let alone assist her in any manner if something were to happen to her.

He wondered if any human being had ever ventured this far down; The only relief was the sound of her voice, for as long as she spoke, she was still alive – but though she was normally quite talkative, there was not much down there for her to comment on. So far, she'd only chimed in to announce that she couldn't see anything and would be switching over to CT to remedy that – but even so, visibility remained low, and within the limited range she could look around in, there was not terribly much _to_ see. Wherever she looked, there was nothing but magma, magma and some more magma in all directions of conventional space.

At the very least, one would have expected this to change once Asuka arrived at the target's calculated position, but once she made it there and found her field of vision as empty as ever, the NERV technicians in the provisional command center realized that they had a problem, and Dr. Akagi did not take long to work out which one: “The magma currents must have been faster than we anticipated.”

As a matter of course, the technicians did not need very long to correct the errors in their calculations, but the crux of the matter was that the revised position lay at a significantly lower depth, which meant that they would be forced to lower the Second Child into even more hostile environments than what they'd already planned for.

The journey continued further and further down, ever closer to hell.

 

“Go deeper.” Misato ordered in an affectation of a command voice that had been polished to perfection through long years of practice.

It was left to technicians to express any doubts she might have by turning all their eyes toward her.

Dr. Akagi didn't know whether she found it worrisome or amusing.

That was always an interesting question with Misato – Just how far was she willing to go in order to defeat the angels? And did she believe that she could atone for the sins of her father if she now succeeded where he had failed 15 years ago?

The EVA continued to sink lower and lower, and by now, the limitations of the technology were making themselves felt. There was trouble with one of the coolant pumps, and Asuka felt it keenly – the was a sound of material splintering, of the sort that had not ever meant anything good ever since she'd first encountered it through the broken plates of her childhood.

The blame, however, could not be ascribed to the engineers, as they had passed the maximum immersion depth that the equipment had been designed for quite a while ago and were now treading far past what the operation manuals would ever have recommended.

Non that they had any other choice – The target was still nowhere to be seen.

“Asuka, what's your status?” Misato asked, as much as she may have pushed toward continueing the operation – Dr. Akagi wondered if it was meant to calm her conscience.

In that case, the signals sent upward from the girl's vainglorious overconfidence should prove quite convenient for that purpose: “Everything's fine down here, but I can't wait to wash off in the shower once I get out of here!”

“Don't worry, you're almost there. Please hold out a little longer... And you know what? I know some really nice hot springs around here. Once we're done, I'm treating all three of us to a visit! To make up for your school trip, if you will. Wouldn't that be nice?”

Interesting. So she was trying to make it up to them. Most likely, she was trying to reassure herself just as much as the girl.

But even the most well-meaning, pretty words were no help against facts – They wound not let themselves be denied, especially not when the harness that had been used to fasten EVA 02's prog knife snapped under the monstrous presence and bid the surface goodbye forever.

“Unit Two has lost the prog knife!”

Ultimately, it was Hyuuga, of all people, who ended up voicing the concerns everyone else was surely thinking: “Captain Katsuragi! It's not an unmanned probe this time!”

Usually her most faithful, trusted right-hand man, he now felt especially indeted to call her out –

But her facade of cool professionalism held.

“I am leading this operation according to my own judgment. Please continue.”

“Misato's right!” Asuka affirmed. “I'll be fine, I can still go further!”

She didn't care that she could already feel a near-continuous layer of sweat between herself and the plug suit. There was no going back for her – If she couldn't carry out this mission to its end, now that all eyes were finally resting upon her like she always wanted, there would be no reason for her to live – Indeed, a heroic death would become the kinder fate compared to the shame and humiliation of defeat. For her, it was Victory or Death.

 

After more than five hundred additional meters beyond the intended depth limit, she finally reached what the technicians now esteemed to be the angel's actual position, and this time, their computers had no failed them –

There it was, the angel's chrysalis.

It was little more than an uncertain, ellipsoid shadow, neither its surface structure nor any further details could really be discerned – It was very apparent that the Evangelion's inbuilt measuring instruments had been constructed for conditions very distinct from these.

Dr. Akagi had compared it to the pupa of an insect, and since Asuka was somewhat more well-versed in biology than the average student her age, she had heard that those often dissolved into a sludge of cells inside their cocoons before their organs could completely reform from scratch. That sounded rather gross, but it was better than the other alternative, which was to regard that thing as a kind of egg, which would make its contents something like... a baby. It was not pity that she wanted to stave off, but revulsion.

 

She'd always hated babies, those seaming, neckless little homunculi with their distorted human faces that somehow managed to manipulate their hosts against their will by accessing the ancient coding inside their DNA.

She loathed their sight and the way it was regarded as ridiculously angelic and endearing... just like dolls.

She'd once heard her step-mother speaking about it, musing if the drive to have children wasn't the simplest, cheapest way to create something in one's own image.

Children were ascribed a degree of flawlessness and likeability nigh-unreachable for an adult person; Everyone said they were ever so adorable and miraculously started caring once they heard that children were involved somehow, even if they'd otherwise have more care for a dog than their fellow men. If you weren't careful enough to avoid conception and birth, you were immediately expected to make them the top priority in your life and give them everything, whereas they were completely helpless, useless and wholly dependent on you like some kind of symbiont, nay, a parasite that could not live on its own without burying into your body and licking it dry after exiting its deformed husk.

Moreover, while humans created children in their own image, no person could do this on her own; If they wanted to preserve anything of their ever-decaying shells for posterity, they had to employ other flesh and tolerate its presence upon the finished product, and if then failed to resemble oneself enough, or, conversely, resembled one much more than the more merciful kinds of reflections, all one could do was to reject the child by the time it grew up and talked back to you.

It was just not worth it, it was thankless hard work, made one dependent upon the help one needed in order to raise the child; Indeed, Asuka felt that there was always something creepily self-destructive about the choice to have children: Why would anyone chose something that would sap their time and money, affect their ability to work and law waste to one's body?

For Asuka, it was clear the she had no need of such futile dolls.

She loathed them, and she loathed the very prospect that she might become like _that woman;_ She would not repeat her mistakes, would not allow herself to be chained up by anything – no man, no feelings, no children, no lowly procreation instincts.

So, she'd decided that she'd never bear children, nor would she ever give her heart away – at least, not _really._ She wouldn't allow anyone or anything to pull her down to her doom -

Not even this goddamned angel.

She brought herself into position and extended the EM cage to its full extent.

The fun could begin.

“An both you and the angel are subject to the magma currents, you will be swept away from its position as soon as you reach it. You've got only one chance.” Dr. Akagi explained.

But that was okay, and failed to cause even the slightest worries for Asuka – in truth, those words were exactly what she'd been wanting to hear for quite some time now.

“Don't worry. You can trust me on this.”

But could she trust herself?

Come on, all she needed to do was to float along with the currents until she reached that thing and then press the button at the exact right moment, it was practically no different from her video games.

Steadily, she came closer and closer, leisurely floating toward the dark messenger until she was just about to cross its shadowy form, and then – click!

The solid light bars of the cage appeared just where she had wanted them, trapping the dark egg in its center.

Just as planned, the ninth angel had been taken into captivity.

There hadn't been the slightest problem – immediately, a wave of relieved exhalations went through the provisional command center, the once hardened, tense faces of everyone present softening up. It was not hard to discern the weight that had been liften from everyone's hearts: Ibuki and Mitsurugi wore smiles, whereas Hyuuga took the time for a deep breath – Even the corners of Dr. Akagi's mouth appeared to be slightly tilting upward. “Great job, Asuka!” Misato lauded.

That much-deserved praise was a balm on the Second Child's heart, for even the dauntless pilot girl, whose hair was now sticking to her sweat-drenched forehead could see that she had not been wholly without tension now that she could feel the adrenaline winding down again. She, too treated herself to a deep, deep breath, though it was more rooted in exhaustion than assuaged fears in her case.

She didn't need long to return to her unshakeable confidence:

“Operation successfully completed! Proceeding to surface.”

 

Thus, the cables which hung down into the endless depths began to turn and move the other way, bringing Asuka closer to safety with every centimeter that was folded back into the coils that housed them.

Everything had worked out without any real incidents, to the point that it almost seemed _too_ easy.

In the end, everything had worked out without Shinji's participation, or even any need for the counsel that Yui had left him. Perhaps...

Perhaps she was wrong, and the future was not decided at all.

With all the planning and effort that the adults regularity channeled into the operations, it shouldn't be strange to consider that one of these fights could go perfectly well for once – after all, Asuka _was_ a trained pilot, and, for all her flaws, her tendency to panic in unexpected situations was lesser than his own, as one would expect –

It was really not strange that an operation involving her should go a lot smoother than his own attempts to do a job he hadn't been prepared for.

Nonetheless, Shinji barely dared to trust this peace.

“S-Shikinami-san, is everything allright with you?” he asked, still hesitant.

True to form, she showed no weakness: “Of course! What did you expect? Honestly, I probably had an easier time performing this operation than you did sitting up there worrying yourself.”

Now _she_ was trying to reassure _him_. He should have seen it coming.

It was actually rather cute.

In part because of that, but also for the very uncomplicated reason that he was simply glad to see her doing well enough to be thinging of bragging, a calm and tender smile touched Shinji's face.

“Still...” she continued, apparently feeling safe enough to resume her usual habit of complaining about everything in sight: “This plug suit feels more like a sauna suit right now. I can't wait to get to the hot springs!”

To think that the Third Child was actually glad to hear that nagging tone.

 

 

“You can really feel the tension ebbing away.” Dr. Akagi commented, facing her friend with a genuine smile.

“So, you think?”

“Very much so, especially where _you're_ concerned. Don't think I haven't noticed that you were every bit as worried as everyone else during today's operation.”

“Well, more or less... It's just that the stakes were high.”

“None of us want a repeat of Second Impact.”

But exactly when the two women were halfway beginning to relax, a beeping alarm signal immediately knocked them back into their 'business modes'.

Asuka's reaction to the sudden noise was not so elegant: “What's going on here?”

It wasn't long till she could see the reasons for herself – there was no telltale like the ghastly roar that penetrated through the EM cage and molten rock to finally reach her ears.

It was a deep, distorted noise that seemed to surround her completely, but despite the call's monstrous nature, she could not help but notice the bizarre similarity to the wail of a human infant.

Sandalphon, the Angel of the Unborn, had been content to drift in the magma currents of his infernal cradle that gently rocked him in his long slumber, while his form and his consciousness had been slowly assembling itself from the light of his father, only slowly congealing into the contours of the form that was set to become his soul's dominion.

Roused by a sudden, abrupt moment followed by a gradual, ever-so-subtle change in his surroundings,the young being only now began to fully realize his own existence, and the purpose he had always known about, a goal far beyond the realms that had shaped him.

And now, with that, he was realizing that he could no longer afford to hesitate.

 

But as the young being longed to spread himself out, he was met with a clear resistance, a sharp-edged restraint even harder than the eggshell he struggled to break out of.

Bending and bulging, the dark ellipsoid’s outer shape began to buckle; Asuka could see how the diffuse, ambiguous limits of the darkness within came to a boil and ultimately went on to fill the light-shaped cuboid to its full capacity.

“It's hatching! Far earlier than we predicted!”

On the monitor, one could see how the archerontic matter swelled and swelled, losing its human-like shape and beginning to manifest some rather different outlines.

Then, the shadow tipped into light, and Sandalphon's birth was imminent.

 

“Will the cage hold?” Misato askied, already suspecting that her hopes would be in vain.

“A fully grown angel?” Though Hyuuga would have preferred to give any other possible answer, he could not change the truth: “Never.”

In fact, the two barely got the time to conclude that exchange before their situation became apparent: The thin, membrane-like barrier that formed the walls of the cage was first indented from the inside in five different spots as whatever was pushing against the other side increasingly came to resemble a human hand that was desperately reaching for the light.

 

But what finally broke through had very little in common with anything human, apart from perhaps its five-fold radial symmetry; The appendages instead resembled the tentacles and polyps of ancient times as they snapped at the sweating EVA pilot.

“Abort the capture mission! Drop the cage!”

Asuka wasted no time in ridding herself of the germinating dark seed beneath her, liberating the pincers that were meant to serve as her hands.

She hates being bound to things, particularly those things that could lead her to destruction, and she especially loathed having her hands tied; To begin with, this unwieldy suit allowed only for rather sluggish, inexact movement; If she couldn't bite or scratch, she'd at least need the capacity to kick scream and hit.

 

So it was at first a welcome sight to see the cage abscond into the depths freely, its microbe-like “arms” still half poking out.

“The primary goal now is to neutralize the Angel at any price!” Misato ordered. “Asuka! Retreat and get ready for battle!”

“Roger! A real battle is far more to my liking anyways!”

Grinning widely and sure of victory, she allowed herself one vain moment of looking down on the now fully emerged enemy and tried out the pincers at the tips of her arms like one would stretch a limb, before proceeding to reach for her trusty prog knife.

So far, so good, but unfortunately there was a little hole in her plan: The fasteners that were supposed to fix the weapon to her body had been undone by the pressure quite some time ago, leaving her shocked, helpless and completely unarmed.

Still in disbelief, she kept pulling at the control yokes a few times without accomplishing much, while as color was being evicted from her face.

“...Damnit, I've lost the knife... and it's coming straight at me!” she added, barely hiding her fear as a being reminiscent of primitive crustaceans charged towards her.

She didn't have much time left to act, and she knew it.

Things were serious now; This was no longer about impressing anyone, but about saving her bare skin, and when it came to preserving its integrity, her mind and instincts managed to function in a surprisingly effortless unison: “Dropping ballast now!”

As soon as she'd pulled at the control yoke, the chain of black weights around the EVA's hips was blown in two by a strategically placed minor explosive charge and tumbled towards the depths, making the EVA a great deal lighter and allowing it to rise noticeably faster – only just fast enough to evade the angel: “It's fast!”

She tried her best to follow the beast's trajectory, but the volcano which had served as its cradle hid it from view. “This is bad, I've lost sight of it.”

 

Not to mention that the thing was now free to attack her from every possible direction. But as she was the one hanging from a cable here, she had very little control over her path and was forced into a very predictable ascent toward the surface; The cords that were her lifeline were yet another vulnerability she wished to be unbound from, in the sense that she hated how much she needed it.

But even if one repressed or overlooked these things, her opinion about her current situation could not be a rosy one: “... This is just _great_. That thing's gone, I can barely see anything, it's hot, this suit is full of sweat, and I _still_ look like a beached whale.”

This situation desperately needed to be changed – a thought which Misato thankfully shared, so that she tried to remedy Asuka's sore lack of instruments with which to transfer her frustrations to the angel with one of her creative solutions: “Asuka? Shinji is going to throw unit 01's prog knife down to you. Try to catch it!”

“Understood. – Throw it already!”

 

Shinji did not need to be told this another time – It was bad enough that he'd been stuck up there by himself, unable to do anything, even if having to switch from being a mere spectator to giving one's 100% was easier said than done.

There was no time for further deliberations – He simply took the knifein his hand and slammed it downwards with all the strength he could muster with a thundering battlecry.

But even if one used the Evangelion's superhuman strength to accelerate the knife to a considerable speed, it would still need at least 40 seconds to make its way to Asuka's position, which only reminded everybody present of just how far down in the jaws of hell she really was – alone with a monster that, according to the technicians' reports, was drawing ever closer toward her.

The Second Child's screams pulled on everybody's nerves with the strenght of twenty locomotives: “Ahh! Stay away! Come on, sink faster!”

The creature extended its tentacles toward her and brought them in position to attack – She managed to grasp the prog knife just fast enough to fend off one of the angel's tentacled 'arms' – but unfortunately, the beast possessed two of those and grasped for the EVA's right leg with the second one, on which it pulled and yanked, apparently unwilling to give up until the material that was already overburdened by the pressure and the head finally gave way and began to crackle beneath its unyielding grasp.

Asuka didn't know if the creature had reasons to expect the head to be a weak spot, let alone _how_ it would know those, but once it had opened its maw, unleashing a wriggling mess of teeth and feeder tendrils, it immediately clamped down on the EVA's head like a suction cup;

She could not suppress nor hide the shudder that passed through her body – The beast appeared to be _sucking_ on her, almost like... a _baby_...

Oversized deep sea shrimp were _not_ supposed to do that, dammit!

Either way, the two intertwined giant's twisting brawl had turned into a battle of three fronts, which was very clearly being dominated by the angel – While the Second Child and her EVA could not even _exist_ down here without great difficulty, Sandalphon was wholly in his element here and able to move freely – Right here, at the heart of the volcano.

The astonishing adaptability of the angel wasn't lost on the people in the command center: “How can it afford to open its mouth in an environment like that?” Dr. Akagi wondered, thinking out loud. Her assistant shared her disbelief: “It's internal composition must be... straight up impossible...”

“Is it because it developed down here?” Mitsurugi speculated.

His reaction to what they'd been presented with on the screens was somewhat calmer but not by much. Angels... even though he had more experience than most concerning what they were capable of, they still continued to baffle him. They were almost like forces of nature, as if it were the mountain and the lava themselves whom they were opposing...

In the end, it had probably been sheer hubris to assume that it was possible to contain them...which made it harder and harder for him to shake off the certitude that there would come a day where he would have to pay for what he had done in his desperation.

 

In any case, the matter that comprised Sandalphon was significantly more robust than that of EVA 02's helmet, which creaked and groaned under the strain of the angel's mandibles. The Evangelion was about to be broken apart like a toothpick.

Asuka sought to attack the creature with her knife, but though it drew sparks, it caused no wounds, and by then, the second tentacle-arm had broken the protective casing around the EVA's leg like a dissapointing toy, forcing her to jettison it in order to maintain the seal on its remaining body.

Now, she was reduced to three limbs all of which were about equally vulnerable to the angel's assault – Sandalphon merely needed to decide which part of her he desired to crush _next_. But Asuka had long since forbidden herself to even consider herself as helpless and canalized the pain she felt in her real leg and her contorted face into her next strike with which she finally intended to pierce the creature's hide to drive her blade deep into its flesh – but it just refused to work, no matter how frenziedly she kept stabbing at the being, even when she targeted its flatfish-like eyes.

 

The knife on which they had pinned all of their hopes was simply insufficient to break her out of the monster's chokehold, and the oozing gorge which had enveloped EVA 02's head made her feel like her head was about to crack like a raw egg.

She was on her own, beneath an indescribable thickness of rock and lava that enclosed her in all conceivable directions, separating her from everything else that was alive – It was like an ironic form of hell devised to give her in a literal manner the separation from others that she had always craved – and yet, she wished nothing more than for someone to burst the shackles of nature's laws and come for her, taking all her pain away.

 

“Extreme heat and extreme pressure... If the angel can withstand those so easily... then it's barely surprising that the prog knife is ineffective.” Dr. Akagi concluded.

“...but... if that is so, is there anything left that can save us now?” Hyuuga asked, voice tinted with the earliest symptoms of despair.

Everything seemed lost.

Shinji awaited the wave of panic he would expect to wash over him any time soon, but, it didn't come. It was as if he were merely observing the danger from a far-off place, his thoughts otherwise remaining surprisingly normal... normal enough for his own calm tto almost frighten him but, that too, only in a distant way.

It sounded cold, but such situations were almost a common occurrence in his life now.

Asuka was about to get smashed, and he felt about as far away from it as the physically was as if his true essence hat been put away to some place where it was packed in cotton from all directions.

And there, in the midst of that unnatural clarity, it was very easy to remember.

Asuka had explained it to him herself earlier, hadn't she? And, Yui mentioned it too! The thought that someone like him would keep his nerves in a situation where a person like Asuka who was prepared, trained and generally much better at this _did not_ felt distinctly wrong in an uncanny way – maybe it was just because he still wasn't down there in the midst of it.

What was there left to save them now? Well, once he'd thought of the answer to that question, it looked painully obvious in hindsight: “Physics!”

That was all Asuka needed to understand. Of course it was. Knowing what to do next and how to go about it in a swift, aggressive manner was the _rule_ for her, not the exception like it was for him. Or perhaps, it was an aftereffect of the synchronization training, for once again, it appeared like their minds had been one for a moment, even through tons of molten rock.

“Right, exactly! Thermal expansion!” she replied – and leave it to her to convert that insight into a plan in a matter of seconds.

Without hesitation, she reached for the next available coolant duct, tore it off from her body and stuffed into into the angel's throat, squeezing it in alongside the Evangelion's beleaguered head, reacting only with a fierce warrior-like scream when the heat inside the plug suddenly swelled up with alarming speed – it could barely be conceptualized as 'heat' anymore , it was more like a heavy, crushing wave which made it hard to breathe and drove the sweat out of her body as if her pores had become fountains and sprinklers.

But the agony merely fueled her zeal and become the energy with which she continued her merciless assault: “Take that!”

 

The angel's teeth lodged themselves in the heat shielding of the arm she was using to force the coolant down the angel's throat, but she merely ignored the boiling-hot pain and the creaking of her armor.

She'd been complaining all day long, but in this moment of desperation it became rather apparent that she ultimately didn't care that much about her personal comforts and frivolities – all that truly counted was victory. “Quickly! Pump all of the remaining coolant through duct number three!” she ordered, well aware that this would likely serve to seal her own fate as much as the angel's.

The creature itself twitched like a beached fish as all of the coolant duct's internal pressure empties itself into its innermost, a stinging cold the likes of which it had never known.

It didn't get the opportunity to even realize what hit it before it crumbled up and imploded mere minutes after it had hatched, leaving behind a tall, cross-shaped pillar of light that pierced the surface, sprinkling the inner walls of the ravines with bloody splotches of lava.

 

Eva 01 barely managed to dodge one of the glowing drops, the provisional command center was shaken by tremors and everybody inside it was forced to hang onto whatever they could grasp.

The liquid the angel decomposed boiled over in mere seconds, ascending to the surface in the form of gaseous bubbles that sprayed refracting droplets into the air as they burst, creating a small rainbow inside the volcanic crater:

The angel was defeated.

 

But it had been a narrow, unglamorous victory, for in its doomed last-ditch effort to preserve its own life, the angel had used the last of its strength to rip the coolant ducts apart.

The angel's attack came too late to avert its own destruction, but as it seemed, it would succeed at dragging the girl who had conquered it along on its path to the underworld – the creature's destruction had come at the cost of their remaining coolant reserves, and the torn ducts and cabled that formed the girl's lifeline were just about to rip for good.

She'd interrupted the coolant supply of her armor in favor of flooding the angel, and now, after that the shock wave from its destruction had inflicted further dents on her much-abused protective shielding, the pressure and heat that it had warded off so far had their free reign with her;

The metal that made up the ugly, unwieldy armor bent and imploded, clamping closely onto the Evangelion's body, the glass of her visor broke and the interface rapidly filled up with glitches and error messages.

“I've defeated the enemy...” she quietly spoke to herself, oddly calm as the scope of her own words was buffered and muffled by shock and disbelief: “...but... it's all over now...”

Then, the last fibers of rubber holding the coolant ducts together finally snapped in two, and Asuka could only stare, wide eyed, as she lost all support and fell into the darkness, tumbling helplessly towards realms the light of day would never touch.

 

One thing that Shinji had always found repulsive about Asuka was her childishness, her stubborn refusal to understand the severity of their crushing burdens; That she'd actually be willing to give her life in order to save the lives of everyone else on this world – his own included – was not something he'd have thought possible. The hard, unmitigated reality of what had just happened hit him like a slap across the face whose harsh intensity even pressed a few tears from his eyes.

And then, nothing could hold him back, as if all the gates and misty veils inside his head had become transparent like glass, and he knew, without further doubts or hesitation, what he must do now.

Even if it felt like being roasted alive in boiling oil.

 

_You'll have to jump in completely if you want to save her. Hang onto the cable with one hand as you jump in case it comes loose from the shock._

 

He had to protect her, if not for anything else, then because she'd gone in his stead.

(Not to speak of his other reasons. )

 

Asuka's downward plunge ceased with a sudden recoil-related shock, but then, she hung there, dangling but safe, held by a strong, firm hand.

Facing up, she encountered not the eyes of death, but those of a titanic Evangelion whose eyes were clearly glowing – without doubt, the same instincts and emotions that had allowed him to act this fast had also caused a spike in his synchronization rate.

The EVA's bare standard armor was glowing in places – even the most green of beginners could not have been connected to that EVA without enduring hellish torment –

And yet, he kept hanging onto her arm as if it were his _own_ life that depended on it.

 

“Daddy's boy?!” she called out, as if she had forgotten that the words were ever meant to be an insult.

On her lips, a thin yet warm smile took shape –

No mean-spirited smirk, no plastic barbie megawatt grin, but a simple, genuine smile of the sort that had not be seen on her for a very long time.

“You dummy, you're just doing this to show off.”

But the accusation lacked its fire, the insult was little more than an affectionate nickname.

Honestly, it ought to bother her that he had saved her; If it were her, she would be gloating about this right now, scolding him for his foolishness; She ought to scold him _right now_ , reason be damned, to maintain at least the appearance of not needing any help – Sure, tomorrow he would say to herself that she simply owed him a favor she would have to return, and regard all of that as being his fault, but not now –

For now, she allowed a certain warm, fuzzy redness to fill her cheeks.

The boys' deed had spoken directly to that fragile, lonely, long-denounced little shard of her soul that wanted nothing more than to be saved and protected.

This was probably the exact moment when Captain Shikinami Asuka Langley experienced her first crush, or at least, the first one to be attached to a real person and not one of her own ideas meant to praise herself;

It was the first time in very long that she'd actually welcomed, accepted and appreciated the help of another, even if it was only for a moment, the first moment in which she even remotely considered that somebody might be worthy of her – The strong, mysterious man who had protected her in this situation and stood at her side in battle; The friendly, gentle boy who still tried to be her friend in spite of her spines and edges, giving her hope that perhaps, she might be able to be strong even without her facade.

Yes, it might have been correct to say that this was the precise instant she came to have an attachment to him in particular beyond wanting attention wherever she could get it;

 

But what stole her breath and heated her cheeks was not strictly speaking the power of love, which became rather apparent once her field of vision began to flicker and was swiftly swallowed by the darkness.

 

\---

 

“Shikinami-san! Shikinami-san! Please wake up, Shikinami-san! Please... open your eyes!”

“H...hm?”

When she woke up, she didn't really register much of the provisional sick bay that had been assembled for her in the vicinity of the command pavilion. She barely even noticed that she'd been cut out of her plugsuit and covered with cool, water-drenched towels atop a camping mat. Not even the infusion inserted into the crook of her right arm in order to resupply her with water and electrolytes truly reached her consciousness.

Instead, her attention fell upon the boy who knelt right next to the afore-mentioned mat, leaning over her and seemingly overjoyed to see the blue of her eyes.

Right now, he was all she could see.

He'd pulled off his own plugsuit until just below the navel so that another cold, wet towel could be draped over his now naked shoulders.

His chest wasn't particularly muscular or otherwise impressive, but it was exactly what she wanted to see right now.

“Shikinami-san! I'm so glad you're okay!”

In any other situation, she might have complained that he hadn't at least cradled her in his arms, her lack of clothing or how men weren't supposed to cry even if it was out of joy –

But right now, she didn't have the strength for that, so he would have to content with the tired but genuine smile she sent his way.

“It's fine, Third Child, it's not like they had to operate on me...”

 

Later she would learn that she'd been somewhat overheated and mildly dehydrated, and that she'd remained passed out for about half an hour because of that – Shinji himself had required a szeable dose of painkillers after the stunt he'd pulled, but had then refused to leave her side until she'd woken up.

As she'd recounted that, Misato had asked Asuka f she didn't find it cute and taken that opportunity to tease her a little about it.

“Such nonsense!” the German pilot commented after she'd emptied the bottle of mineral water which her guardian had previously handed her in order to combat the effects of the heat. “As if such a little bit of heat would be enough to bring _me_ down! That idiotic idiot got all worked up over nothing.”

Misato merely smiled and determined that they had both more than earned their trip to the hot springs.

 

\---

 

“Nagato...?”

“Dad? Is that you?”

“Is this a bad time? I wouldn't want to interrupt you if you're busy with your friends right now...”

“You're not ever 'interrupting' me dad. You know I'm always glad to hear from you. We're on a bus right now, driving back to our hostel.”

“Then you must have spent the day diving course?”

“Yes we did. Is there a reason why you're calling?”

“Oh, that's... not really. It's nothing. I was just missing you. And I'm sorry. I'm sorry about everything...”

The person on the other end of the phone line appeared to be struggling to master their emotional state.

“Dad...? What's the matter? What are you apologizing for?”

“Nothing in particular. I just wanted to hear your voice; We might just narrowly have averted the end of the world.”

The elder Mitsurugi sounded a lot more steadied them, almost back to his usual jovial self.

“Does this mean there was another angel attack? Is Ikari-kun alright?”

“As far as I've heard, yes. The commander ought to be very proud of the boy, he's a real gentleman. At least when it comes to rescuing damsels in distress.”

“...damsels in distress?” Nagato asked, disbelievingly.

“It's a long story. Let me start from the beginning...”

 

\---

 

“For real? Oh man! Shinji gets to be a hero while we have to bake in the sun up here.”

As Mitsurugi Nagato came to discover, he wasn't the only one who didn't quite understand why everyone else was so crazy about the heat and the sunlight – His reservations were shared by none other than Kensuke.

So, he simply smiled.

Touji and especially Kensuke spent some time grilling him with questions about the battle, until the former somehow diverted the topic of the conversation towards Hikari's brand new tankini (which landed him much widespread disapproval when she showed up with a bunch of her friends to ask Nagato about Asuka.)

“Hey, at least it sounds like the two of them didn't spent the week being bored.” Touji surmised, eventually concluding the conversation. “If what you say is right, they should be enjoying themselves in a hot spring just about now.”

 

\----

 

Indeed, the pilots did indeed end up going on that promised trip to the hot springs, once they had been provided with adequate amounts of rest and liquid.

But before the Third Child could go about peeling off the school uniform he'd only donned just a little earlier, he heard someone announcing a special delivery that was apparently intended for 'the people from NERV' –

First, the was a post card of Tokyo 3 above whose motif the words “the world is wrong” had been scrawled in red ink. On its backside, there was a block of writing announcing a date, a time, and a place.

But he could worry about that later.

Not now. For now, he deserved a little bit of relaxation.

Then, there was a package that was supposedly from Kaji.

As he went about unpacking it and casually wondered what it could be (His first guess was some sort of a gift for Misato), he distantly concluded that it was a pity how PenPen wasn't with them now that they'd have an opportunity to visit a real hot spring or once.

His surprise was all the greater when the bird in question burst from the package as soon as he'd pulled up its lid, immediately looking around for the hot bath which Kaji had doubtlessly promised him – This somewhat... unconventional strategy rather suited the cool, stubble-faced man.

And hey, now he'd have a little bit of company in the men's section.

“The hot springs are this way.” he advised the penguin.

 

\----

 

As expected, PenPen was rather enthusiastic about this opportunity and swam across in the hot spring with relish – which didn't mean that his flatmate had nothing to enjoy here. After his experience with the volcano, he had initially doubted if he'd ever use the words 'pleasantly' and 'warm' in the same sentence again, but all it took to change his mind was a cozy hot spring.

“This feels like heaven!” he decided. “I never thought that a hot bath could feel so good...”

Gone were the dark thoughts that would tend to follow him into the tub back when he'd first moved in with Misato. He was far too exhausted to bother with them, and for that, the warm water's relaxing effects had proven to be an excellent remedy.

He'd deserved this today (insofar as he was bold enough to say that he _deserved_ anything), after all, this had been what by almost every standard could be called a successful day, even if it had not seemed all that promising when it first began – He'd finally managed to memorize at least some of that physics stuff, contributed a helpful idea to the angel's defeat, and had even managed to save Asuka's life – She'd smiled at him, too, so who knows, perhaps she was actually starting to like him... or at least, to not-hate him.

Perhaps, there was still hope.

“Hey Shinji!”

When Misato's voice pulled him from his thoughts, Shinji couldn't keep the cloth he'd placed on his head as a further contact with the warm water from slipping into the pool below.

“Could you please throw us the shampoo?”

“Ours ran out.” Asuka explained.

“Uh... alright, here it comes.”

Unfortunately, Shinji's throw of the shampoo bottle did not prove as successful as his earlier attempt with he prog knife.

“OUCH! Careful where you're throwing that, you klutz!”

So much for getting Asuka to like him.

“Sorry...”

“ Geez! You've hit me on my most sensitive spots!”

“Ohh, let me see!” Misato offered – and apparently did not wait for any sort of agreement from Asuka's end.

“Ahh! That tickles!”

“Oh, but you have such soft skin, Asuka~”

“It still tickles!”

“Oh, really? And what about here? Or here?”

“Don't touch it!”

“Aww, why not? It's not like you'll lose anything!”

 

While both ladies appeared to be having a lot of fun, Shinji made the mistake of spending a little too long thinking about where _exactly_ he might have hit Asuka. His all too concrete picturing of what the girls might be doing lead to some increased blood flow to the skin of his face, as well as to... other parts.

Let's just say that both Asuka and Misato were rather attractive individuals.

Far too busy with his futile attempts to banish the products of his all to lively imagination into a small corner of his skull, the boy only noticed their... result when his feathered flatmate threw him a curious glance.

He was swift as the wind in hiding himself beneath the water's surface all the way until just below his nose, though this was only a partial realization of his true wish to abscond into the depths of the planet. Where were those volcanoes when you actually needed them for a change?

“Thermal expansion.... hehe... how embarassing...”

So yeah. Living with all these attractive single ladies could _really_ be exhausting at times... Asuka, Misato... Rei too, though she wasn't present at the moment.

But regardless, they were probably still the three best things to ever happen to him and he'd continue giving it his all to keep them safe.

 

\---

 

While their male flatmate was still cursing the fact that they'd gone to visit a hot rather than a cold spring, the two ladies had since concluded their games (that, in reality, had been rather more innocent than Shinji had imagined them to be. ), and even gotten around to actually use the bottle of shampoo which had caused the entire mess.

Ultimately, they ended up seated on the rocks at the edge of the springs, paddling around in the warm water after they'd sufficiently washed and dried themselves, covered only in a towel (in Misato's case) and an interface headset (In Asuka's.)

Now that she'd been given a chance to get a closer look at them, Asuka war forced to admit that Misato's 'chest' outsized hers a lot further than she'd previously thought, which did make her worry about how that might affect her already meager chances with Kaji (and, though she'd never admit it, a certain other member of their household)

But then she noted something else, a long, leathery scar as wide as her thumb running down from the valley of her chest down onto her ribs. It wasn't the first time she'd noticed it.

“Uhm... I've always wondered...”

“You mean the scar? It's something like a little memento from Second Impact.”

Mildly affected, Asuka directed her gaze into the distance.

The scars of the past, eh?

A memento? She couldn't help but think of the hand puppet that she'd brought with her despite all her loathing.

“I suppose you know... about me...”

“It's a part of my job to know. But don't worry. All of that was a long, long time ago, right?”

Yes, it was. Or at least, it _should_ have been.

 

\---

 

Yet even if he'd taken the time to celebrate, it was ultimately impossible for Shinji to leave his pains and fears behind for very long, not any more than he could blot out the knowledge of his heavy burden and his cruel duty.

There could be no better proof than his presence here –

At the exact same place which Yui had specified on her post card, the very same street corner where they had met the times before.

He had not forgotten her warnings.

Thus, he stood across from her in the light of the rising moon, his hair whipped by the cool evening wind before it had had the opportunity to dry completely.

Despite its scarcity, the time before his arrival here had been enough for him to reach a conclusion as to what he wanted to say next.

“Yui...” he began, opening and closing his hand as he often did when he attempted to squeeze something like determination out of himself. “I want you to tell me what I need to know for the next battle.”

If it was _possible_ to know, then he _had_ to grasp the opportunity, he _had_ to know what it was possible to know even if it was just a little.

It it would help him to protect Asuka, Misato and Rei, he couldn't afford not to, even if that meant having to shoulder the burden of that knowledge. If it was necessary for that, he'd even bear it gladly.

 

“Let me think...” Yui thought for a bit, but soon broke out in a smile, as if she'd come to remember some kind of amusing incident. Or perhaps, she was simply glad that he was beginning to trust her.

“The next battle will probably be the one with the power outage. That's one of the easier ones.

Asuka is going to think of a plan, so all you have to do is follow it. And don't worry. This will be one of those rare cases where shooting works.”

 

_______________

  1. Well, there goes our first story arc; On with the next. See you all in chapter 2.09: [The First Impression], wherein the Hard Life Of Shinji Ikari continues.

  2. Yes, we may be seeing the trailer version of EVA 08 somewhere down the line. Which is not to say that canon!Eva 08 will not show up, but it'll probably have a different number because Nadia has given me a fetish for infinity symbols.

  3. References to certain Orcish battle cries are wholly intentional. Horde ftw

  4. Just to clarify/ avoid misunderstandings, because people often get shit about this: There are many perfectly valid reasons not to want children. But with Asuka there's reason to suspect that her warped experiences with Kyoko somehow played into it. And let's face it there are some objectively scary things about babymaking, at least in the sense than anything can be made to sound gross depending on how you look at it. I was mostly inspired by the creepy fetus-like brief flashing images in ep 22's mindrape scene and how they imply that there's some fundamental revulsion going on beyond what would be proportional – my main goal was to make the venture into the dark dephts on the Earth feel like a trip into the gloomy dark subconscious




 


	28. 09: [The First Impression]

**09: [The First Impression]**

 

**\---**

 

_What is love but the strangest of feelings?_

_A sin you swallow for the rest of your life?_

_You've been looking for someone to believe in_

_To love you until your eyes run dry  
_

_She lives on disillusion row_

_We go where the wild blood flows_

_On our bodies we share the same scar_

_Love me, wherever you are  
_

_How do you love with a fate full of rust?_

_How do you turn what the savage tame?_

_You've been looking for someone you can trust_

_To love you, again and again  
_

_How do you love in a house without feelings?_

_How do you turn what the savage tame?_

_I've been looking for someone to believe in_

_Love me, again and again  
_

_She lives by disillusion's glow_

_We go where the wild blood flows_

_On our bodies we share the same scar  
_

_How do you love on a night without feelings?_

_She says, love, I hear sound, I see fury_

_She says, love's not a hostile condition_

_Love me, wherever you are  
_

_-Razorlight, ‘Wire to Wire’_

 

 

 

\---  
  
  


It was a little more than an ordinary dream, and a little less than a vision.

Much like a regular dream, it started with the harmless memory of an everyday scene, unremarkable enough to be confused for reality.

Shinji found himself walking down the edge of a street he regularity passed through on his way to school, ear buds plugged in, gaze clouded by somber thoughts that acted as a veil between him and the cheerfulness that bright sunlight typically tended to induce in most people.

So far, it was a simple, ordinary occurrence that he lived through almost every day. He was merely a single, unassuming figure amid the large crowd moving through Tokyo-3s lively sidewalks.

But by the time he'd reached the road bride that he tended to cross on his way to school, the dream had already begun to diverge from the rails of reality:

His gaze that had so far been lowered shifted upward, and his cobalt blue eyes widened to make room for the fear and awe that took possession of them, suddenly, yet leisurely, like a slowed-down video clip of eyes blinking.

Up there, exactly where the stairs ended, he was faced by a formidable apparition that had every fiber of his being shaking.

It took the shape of a young man, his entire form cast in sharp, profound shadows.

He stood astride, his fists clenched, his posture upright, his short, dark hair whipped by the wind, staring down at the boy below with firmness and determination as an angry spirit might.

His skin hung off his flesh like tattered cloth, and by itself, the sight of the muscles, sinews and bones that were so exposed was enough to drive a cold shiver down the boy's spine like some kind of glutinous, viscous syrup that did not merely flow down and vanish, but left behind a clear trail of residual chill.

And yet, the young man up there did not seem the least bit ashamed or hampered by his mangled appearance; On the contrary, he made no move to conceal it, but wore it proudly as a mark of his decision and a testament to the will that burned in his eyes and indeed glowed there so strongly that they appeared to shine with some inner crimson light.

He had the sort of eyes that you only needed to look into once to understand that this person had never done a single thing that he didn't  _want_ to do – 

Up there was power beyond the boy's wildest dreams, condensed into form, the power he needed to wield in order to accomplish the things he cared about, abhorrent, terrifying,  _dangerous_ power.

Cowed and swallowed, he looked up at it, terror and adulation warring in his gaze, crossing blades in silence; No sound, no sigh of that wild turmoil crossed into the outside world.

The inner butchery had only allowed for fearful hesitation, fearful swallowing, or the uneasy shifting of weight from one leg to the other, and not much more, until the conflict would be over and the course decided, while the dazed remainder of him that was still capable of distantly perceiving the outer world was not enough to resist the hypnotic magnetism exuded by the young man's frame.

Unable to tear his gaze from the top of the stairs, he began to climb the steps one after another as if in a trance, even after the escalator had begun to run backwards and a fierce wind began to blow against him ever stronger, a sheer wall of air intent on blocking his path the more eagerly he climbed towards the terrifying darkness.

The wind tousled his hair, and somehow managed to open some buttons on his uniform jacket in order to whip against his bare chest, until an even stronger wave of wind nearly threw him off the escalate, ripping the ear buds from his ears and taking his trusty music player along with it, blowing it into the sky before he even had the chance to reach for it.

  
  


Tracking the cherished memento with his eyes, he was too shaken by its sudden loss to notice how, in that very moment, the movements had stopped and the winds had ceased.

The path before him was clear, but now that he had lost what had once been his supposed protection against the loud and vigorous burning of the wind, he might as well have been in the midst of a featureless desert.

Deeply daunted and feeling very exposed, he no longer knew what to do and stood there motionless, paralyzed by his fear.

He wanted to turn back, but he was to afraid to turn that same back at the  _thing_ at the top of the stairs. 

There may have been the beginnings of an attempt to escape by walking backwards, but before the first step to that could be taken, its direction reversed, and his face became the mirror of a determination that would not allow for him not to advance.

Without further effort, he now climbed the remaining stairs with firm steps, one after another.

By the time the young man reached the top, he casually wondered about the shivering, hesitant boy that stood (or had stood?) down at the bottom of the stairs, recalling a tear-stained face with dark blue eyes – but even then, he single-mindedly continued on his path, not taking as much as a second to look back.

  
  


\----  
  


Exhausted from all the running, Yui had no choice but to allow herself a brief breather, coming to a standstill while leaning against the wall. The shoes she had acquired were proving rather uncomfortable, and she could practically fear the sun and summer heat bearing down on her head and neck like a physical weight.

It did cost a bit of willpower to raise her head.

As of now, she'd been roaming the city for quite a while, by day and by night, always on the run, always checking all possible hiding places, and always, _always_ without result.

The entity she sought... 'Leatha', if she had already been classified as such, was about the only thing she could never expect to find in the same place. That being knew every bit as much if she did, if not more, and it surely knew that she would be hunting for it.

But whatever she might know, Yui was still a single, simple girl... how could she hope to find something that even NERV security with all its resources had failed to locate.

Perhaps it was time for her to accept that her undertaking had been hopeless from the beginning.

No. She owed it to her father to keep fighting until the end, at the very least, even if it was futile. And wasn't _everything_ , ever?

Her gaze turned toward the sky.

The power outage – if it was even going to appear in this version of the events – was taking it sweet time. She wondered if the instructions she had left to Shinji would be of any use to him in the end. In her thoughts, she went over past versions of the event. She hadn't told him how he usually managed to claw into the walls of the main shaft in order to protect both his co-pilots from falling to their deaths – Usually, he managed this just fine without any prompting, and she'd learned the hard way that it would be important not to tell him every single tiny detail, to ensure that he would not attribute his every victory to her little 'tips' – She wanted to use this stage of the events to boost his self-confidence, in part because she cared about him and didn't like to see him suffering, but also because she knew that he would dearly need it once the truly problematic battles began... Until then, she would need to win his trust through her tips and advice about the future, to ensure that he would listen to her in certain critical moments...

The very thought that she would need to win his trust in the first place sounded absurd and reminded her of just how lonely she felt, all alone in a world in which she was never supposed to exist.... for all their similarities, the boy she had been talking with was not the Shinji Ikari she had once come to know....

What else could she do? Warn the people of NERV about the power outage or the angel? Se'd already tried all of that and it never lead to anything good, at least not long-term. In the end, everything had turned out more complicated, more chaoic, and above all, _worse._ The same was true for the people that were currently working on Unit 04 – She knew what was about to happen, but she didn't think she could stop it. There had not been a single time when she had successfully averted that particular debacle, at least not without further unpleasant consequences or the presence of other aberrant mitigating factors; It had been a long, long time since she'd come to accept that she could not solve all the problems in this world and would do well to focus on her objective without interfering too much with the sequence of events; But now that she knew that this would be her final chance, the weight of the lives she'd be unable to save weighed heavily on her shoulders.

 

“Hey, you! What are you doing in a place like this?”

Oh no. Two men. Police officers.

Of course. 'Leatha' wasn't the only one who might think of such abandoned warehouses as a good hiding place, the same was true for common thieves or drug dealers, which made it a sensible move to have the authorities check on these areas now and then.

“Hey, Taniguchi, doesn't that kid look familiar to you?”

“Yes she does. She matches the exact description of that girl that escaped from a hospital not too long ago...”

Damnit. Knowing well that her chances weren't especially grand, Yui nonetheless turned around and ran as fast as her legs would let her.

At the very least, she had to try;

Even if she would most likely lose, she wouldn't allow herself to be caught without a fight.

 

\----

 

“This is it?”

“Yes, Commander.” Dr. Akagi confirmed, proudly tapping the top of the metal cylinder whose opened front was turned to face the commander.

Dissatisfied, she noted that the side of the hatch was still encrusted with stains of a dried, brown substance here and there, just morsels of the same sort that were still stuck under some of her fingernails despite her best efforts at precautions.

You'd have had to take a closer look to notice them, unless you had the practiced, scrutinizing glance of a researcher.

She hoped that her superior would overlook these spots much like she had when it was still the same, alarming red as as the varnish that covered the nondescript, cylindrical device, its shape almost perfectly geometrical and feature-starved save for the two buttons that needed to be pressed at once to open it up, two leather straps that allowed for it to be carried like a backpack, and some ports for screens and the like.

Its casing consisted of two symmetrical halves that could be folded apart like a book, and right now, it was wide open for purposes of demonstration, allowing the commander to peer inside.

“This is it. These are the fruits of 'Project Kronos'.”

“Is it ready for use?”

“Theoretically, yes, but given the nature of the base material, I would prefer to run extensive tests before we begin the hunt for our escaped test subject. So far, it seems to be going remarkably well, considering the limitations posed by the attrition rate of the primary components. “

“Then do so.”

“Yes, Sir.” Akagi applied as she closed the casing of her invention. On second glance, she noticed the red streaks that this had left upon the commander's desk.

“My apologies. I'll take care of it.”

 

 

\---

 

She had opened the little plastic flap on the back of the seat before her to use it as a table, but the wobbly piece of plastic with a round indentation for securing drinks fell rather short of a stable surface.

Yes, she could put the book that she'd brought for her long train ride on top of it, but when she'd try to read it, the letters would spin and wobble before her eyes: The mild but persistent motions of the train made them more likely to cause her a headache than a pleasant reading experience.

And even when the train came to a standstill, it would do so only briefly, so that it was hardly worth bothering to open up her book.

Thus, it remained untouched on the previously mentioned plastic table, while her pale fingers rested uselessly in her lap.

Of course, she could also have chosen a bench of seats that was facing another with a far more stable plastic table in between, but she didn't have the courage.

There were only four such tables in the carriage, and if someone were to sit across her... if, perhaps, their legs or arms were to brush against each other, or, if she were to inadvertently take up too much space on the table...

No, she much preferred to stay right where she was, hidden away in some unremarkable little corner of the carriage, sitting directly by the window so she could feel the cool glass on her shoulder and feel safe in the small space between all three adjacent barriers.

She didn't like to be seen by others.

Her quiet, hesitant voice was not made for the ears of hurried people, nor was her body fit for their gazes.... Even _she_ did not like to look upon herself, but the faded, minimally-present reflection of her face in the window would never disappear for good, always present as a subtle, ghostly overlay over the images of the passing landscape, unless they were going through a tunnel.

That was particularly bad, because then, her reflection would become the _only_ thing that could be seen.

She didn't want to see herself, nor anyone else.

She was so tired of everything, especially herself.

The train was going to Tokyo-3.

In these hard times, their father had decided to continue his search for work in that dangerous city that everyone was now fleeing from. It was only natural that the fleeing people would leave many vacancies in their wake... in particular, that mysterious organization called 'NERV', of which little was known besides the open secret that it operated in Tokyo-3, was always looking for those few brave people who would be willing to live and work in a city that habitually turned into a war zone in exchange for generous compensation in both perks and monetary form.

So much for her father's reason to move here, but the silent, bookish girl couldn't really say what _she_ was doing here. She didn't want to do her father an injustice, given how he worked day in, day out to support his daughter – but it was precisely for that reason that he seldom saw her, to the point that they could barely be considered a part of each other's lives.... besides, she couldn't really blame her father for eschewing her company. All she was to him now was a painful reminder of her mother and his anger at how she had left them both...

Or did he, in fact, blame his daughter for the fate that had befallen his beloved wife?

She did not know, but she _did_ know that she could not expect her father to alleviate her loneliness.

Or anyone else, for that matter.

It was always the same, no matter where the winds of life would take her. What did it matter if the people surrounding her continued to change, if she'd never have the courage to speak to any of them? She wouldn't be surprised if most of the kids in her old class had never even noticed that she had been there to begin with –

Wherever she would go, by the time she had to leave, not a single person would be there to see her off at the train station.

And witch each day that went by like this, she was growing more and more weary of it all. She'd had more than enough of this world, and of herself. And who knew, perhaps, she would soon find relief...

She could not glance at her pallid, porcelain fingers without contemplating how she'd always been rather feeble, and as of lately... well, she felt like the life was slowly but surely being sucked out of her as if drained by some kind of vampiric parasite.

The closer she came to her destination, the more she felt the urge to go lie down somewhere.

Who knew, perhaps, this might be the last time she'd be moving to another city.

 

\---

 

After the battle with the ninth angel, the Children had found remainder of their free week to be a rather welcome break, although the time that they could spend in the pool, on their beds or with any other leisure activities was limited by Misato's occasional threats of extra chores or cuts to their allowances, usually accompanied by a wicked grin and a school book being waved in their faces.

Shinji was fairly conscientious about getting to work, and in time, even Asuka began to see reason, though the reason likely had more to do with her pride than any real sense of responsibility. Even so, she would not suffer any more bad grades.

When school finally started back up on the following Monday, Shinji was well aware that there were still substantial gaps in his knowledge, but at least, he now had a rough idea of what the teacher was going on about.

Contrary to his expectations, he had also been spared being the only one who couldn't join in on the newest topics of discussion, though this wasn't exactly good news to the Children – For the reason that they were not all busy conversing about all the exciting happenings of their class trips that those had long since become old news: Since most of the students' parents worked at NERV, a few of them must have casually mentioned the tale of Asuka's mission and Shinji's 'heroic rescue' to their kids.

The student body's opinions on this were mixed – Some found the prospect that both the widely swooned-over EVA pilots might soon be taken (by each other) fairly encouraging, hoping that some of the opposite sex' attention might finally be left over for them; Others meanwhile sighed in resignation, burying their hopes that they might one day claim one of the pilots' hearts for themselves... the one thing they all seemed to agree on was that the simply fact that Shinji had prevented Asuka from plummeting to a fiery Death somehow implied that they were now a couple... or at least, that it would be terribly funny to tease them relentlessly about that possibility. To both their frustration.

That there may or may not have been a tidbit of truth in there only made it worse.

Even with his friends, Shinji could not seem to find any respite: “Shame on you! Fraternizing with the enemy while we were away! I expected better of you, you traitor!” Kensuke joked. “I knew it! The first time I caught you in pair look, I might still have believed you, but three strikes and you're out!”

“Shikinami can't even _stand_ me.” Shinji retorted, mentally chastising himself for the transparently wistful tone and what it may imply of his wishes regarding that situation.

This, however, did not diminish Touji's grin by any means, but rather broadened it: “Don't you worry. They always puck on the ones they like. Even the happiest of couples have the occasional lover's quarrel.“

The sheer amount of giggling that followed this comment immediately cemented the 'lover's quarrel' part as an ongoing running gag, nay, a runaway meme that spread through the student body like a wave of the common cold. Even Nagato, who rarely participated in juvenile jests, disdained gossip and had previously apologized for carelessly spreading the tale of the battle's events, pulled him aside in a quiet moment to inform Shinji that he had nothing to be ashamed of and that Asuka couldn't be _that_ bad – Shinji chose to interpret this as a somewhat clumsy attempt at humor on Nagato's part.

He was neither experienced nor good at it.

It was probably redundant to state that Asuka herself wasn't too pleased either and growing rather annoyed with the chatter that she kept hearing out of every nook and cranny in the school building or being whispered behind her back, and needless to specify that a lot of that displeasure was vented upon Shinji.

But one thing about gossip was that it did not have a terribly long half-life, particularly since the pilots were doing little to feed the rumors by failing to act anything like a couple, and though Touji would still occasionally tease them about the 'lover's quarrel' as it was his sword duty as the class jester, their classmates soon found something else to palaver about after the rumors ran their course, and before they had reached the middle of the week, some semblance of normalcy had returned to their lives, both at school and in the Katsuragi Household.

That also meant that they had returned to their old morning routine: Shinji was usually the first one up, either, because he was the only one in this household who neither skillfully ignored nor violently mistreated his alarm clock, or because one of these visions would already have pulled him from his slumber by the time it rang.

Either way he would generally proceed to put on his usual school uniform before doing anything else.

Since Asuka tended to occupy the bathroom for at least a sizable portion of the morning, he had acquired the habit of keeping his comb in his room so that he could get his hair in order without having to wait half an hour.

After he had done that and packed his school bag, he continued onwards to the kitchen, where he usually donned an apron (No matter how much Asuka might tease him about this, he did _not_ want to get his uniform covered in miscellaneous stains a mere five minuted after putting it on.) and went about the production of a breakfast so that it would be ready when the ladies deemed it fit to seat themselves at the table, which, at least in Asuka's case, was going to take a while, as he had just passed her in the hallway as she strode toward the bathroom with a joyous hum.

Today, their meal would consist of fried eggs, salad and sausages, alongside the obligatory bowl of rice and a little soup as an appetizer – a two-course breakfast fit for the defenders of the Earth. Of course, he also placed a can of beer on the table to prepare for Misato's arrival.

Lately, Shinji was beginning to think that he was getting the hang of this whole cooking thing, at least judging by the ever increasing frequency of Misato's praise, although she'd always had a rather idiosyncratic definition of 'tasty'.

He would simply have to hope that today's servings wouldn't be too much of a failure – In any case that should become apparent in about two minutes, for no sooner than Shinji had finished preparing the first portion and decoratively arranged it next to the can of beer he had already preemptively placed on the table, he could hear the door to Misato's room sliding open.

Even though he would not have thought it possible not too long ago, and still found it somewhat disturbing if he cared to think about it in more detail, he barely reacted anymore as his barely clothed guardian staggered over to the table in a zombie-like, still half-sleeping manner; The can of beer that she opened first thing upon her arrival could generally be expected to fix that.

And indeed, what followed next was her usual morning ritual consisting of a hearty gulp, the ensuing scream of joy including a few happy tears which marked the onset of a frantic cheerfulness that even hyperactive gradeschooler would have envied.

“Say, Shin-chan...” she commented, as she put down the beer can or exactly as long as it took her other hand to bring her bowl of soup to her lips and take a sizeable gulp out of it, too. “...did you do something different with the soup today?”

“Yes, I did!” Shinji confirmed with a smile, delighted to learn that his efforts had not gone unnoticed. “It's got fish-flakes in it, Ritsuko-san gave them to me.”

But before either of the two had the opportunity to make any further comments, their attention was claimed by a loud shout of “AAAAHHH!” echoing from the direction of the bathroom, which was promptly followed by the noise of several doors being opened to make way for hurried steps, until Asuka pulled aside the curtains that led to the small bit of hallway that led to the bathroom to engage in what appeared to be her favorite activity: Complaining vigorously about everything in sight: _“Why is the water so hot?!”_

“I'm sorry...” Shinji replied, even if he didn't get why she was addressing that complaint at him and not, say, the local janitor. He was just glad that she had at least had enough sense to sparsely cover her X-rated body parts by wrapping a scant, red towel around her body; He would rather not have a repeat of a certain painful incident that had taken place not too soon after Asuka had first moved in.

But from the looks of it, his attempts at quiet submission did little to spare him from the Second Child's wrath: Quite the opposite, for some paradoxical reason he had failed to divine, it only seemed to make her angrier: “Yeah sure! No matter what's going on, you apologize just to be sure! Do you seriously think that everything is always your fault?”

From her perspective, things looked like this:

She rather liked the cool, determined Shinji, not the boring, lame facet of his personality he tended to display by default. Thus, she wanted to use a little provocation and 'well-meaning advice' to coax him into displaying his more attractive side – of course, as with all things, she felt a certain ambivalence about this: On the one hand, such a softie was unlikely to ever mature into a serious rival and would allow her to push him around at her leisure and convenience (for example when she felt like venting her frustration about all those infuriating rumors going around at school), but on the other, he'd have to be a lot more mature and masculine for her pride to accept him... and some part of her really wanted to be able to do that.

Unfortunately, his cautious yet helpless “Uh...” did not make this any easier for her.

“With you, apologizing is almost like one of your reflexes... you must be very scared of being told that you effed up, eh, Daddy's Boy? Well, sorry then, because I'm not going to coddle you. If you want to apologize so badly, apologize for forgetting to get my shampoo! I _told_ you to buy me some more, and now, it's run out!”

“But... there's still some left...”

“Are you an idiot? Do you really think that I'm going to use the same garbage that you and Misato use?” She would at least have assumed that he'd have the self-respect to use some proper men's shampoo. “I have a completely different hair type, and besides, I won't allow anything other than _quality_ products to touch my beautiful hair!”

“Uh... I'm sorry...”

“And now you're apologizing again! Did you listen to anything I said for even just a second?”

“Come on, let him be.” Misato interceded with a wave of her hand as she judged the conversation to be getting a little out of hands. “This is just the way he is.”

“ _Just the way he is?_ ” Asuka retorted, taking umbrage to the very concept. Without a hint of timidity, she pointed her index finger straight at her guardian. “Aren't _you_ supposed to be responsible for him? You're far too soft on him! Do I have to do _everything_ by myself?” She complained, deliberately enacting a sigh of condescending frustration before she turned back to her fellow pilot and made him the next target for her pointed index finger.

“Now listen up, Daddy's Boy! If you always give up right away, nothing is _ever_ going to change! If you never stand up for yourself and let others walk all over you, you're only proving that you lack the courage to do anything!”

Now this development was rather adorable as far as Misato was concerned. Asuka, the great pedagogue. So now it wasn't only Ritsuko, but the Children themselves dissecting and criticizing everything she did. Next thing she knew, Asuka would probably throw poor Shinji onto a couch and attempt to psychoanalyze him. Too bad that all her great speeches and complains never left Asuka any time to point her eager fingers at herself. She wasn't wrong in her claim that Shinji could probably use a little more self-confidence, but it was equally true that her own ego seemed in dire need of a trim...

“You know what you call a guy who won't even stand up for what he knows is his good right?” she continued alongside continued index-finger gestures. “You call them a _coward._ And there is nothing worse in this world than cowardly little boys! That's why I'm only interested in _real_ men. Get it? Get it?!”

“Uh... sorry...” Shinji replied, seeing Asukas attempts to 'housetrain' him as a mere underlining of how he didn't stand the ghost of a chance. Any moment now she would start gushing over Kaji again, perhaps right in the next sentence...

Asuka herself was anything but pleased by his reaction: “You can't be serious-!”

“Oh!” Misato then commented casually, interrupting the redhead in mid-sentence. “Your towel is slipping.”

Of course, Shinji failed to spontaneously manifest the precognitive powers he would have needed to foresee the blunder that was ultimately a consequence of Asuka's worked up state and her usual carelessness, and for that there could only be one punishment: A slap across the face.

Honestly, the only reason he didn't score another roundhousekick was that he'd recently saved her life.

 

And well, so it came to pass that the poor, unfortunate Third Child had to go to school with a visible, red handprint on his face – that is, if he could even reach the school without sinking into the ground out of shame for that entire incident and the gossip that would undoubtedly follow the state of his face.

 

\---

 

“Project Kronos, hm?”

The pictograms on Kaji's screen refused to make sense.

Here, in the silent darkness, surrounded by cables that, due to their red and blue coloring and the glistening, sticky coolant they were mostly coated and partially submerged in, bore some disturbing resemblance to living veins and arteries, he had succeed in sneaking a glance at one of the most highly classified databases in this complex and every file and folder on it, no matter how well hidden – That is, he could see them, but _not_ open them.

 

He had to commend good old Rit-chan on this, she had done anything but a half-assed job. Every single folder would requite at least a dozen passwords and description keys to be read, and as of now, he didn't have access to any of them.

Finding answers would prove to be a lot harder than he'd hoped, but at least, the names of the folders could serve as a list of keywords to investigate and rough outline of just how much knowledge was still hidden from his view. Not that the projects' names were particularly helpful. Most of them were named for deities or contained symbolic allusions to mythology, which, at best, served at a testament to the hubris their inceptions had entailed.

Still. While most folders had either existed for years or been created very soon after the Fourth Angel's appearance, but there was a single folder labeled 'Kronos' that broke that pattern: The oldest files contained within dated back to just a few weeks before the first attack.

That was an oddity, which made it a suspicious point to investigate. It could possibly mean the occurrence of something unforeseen, something that could serve as a weak link in the chain. Or perhaps, so he thought, it might contain an explanation for the insanely timely discovery and summoning of the Third Child...

Two weeks before the battle... had there been any notable incidents around that time?

 

\----

 

Though she had ordered the Uniform for this school well in advance, it had not yet arrived, leaving her no choice but to provisionally don her old one and wear it for her first day of class in this new city. She'd feared the attention that her apparel seemed fated to draw, but once she arrived, very few seemed to take notice of her presence, even though she felt like she was swimming through the air more than she was walking through it: The strange air of these unfamiliar places was more like a sticky, viscous fluid to her uncertain, cautious little steps that could only traverse it with great effort, her small pair of feet never straying too far from each other.

She felt swarmed and besieged by the ever-increasing number of students that wore her new school's uniform, particularly as their number and density steadily increased the closer she came to the building, and the closer she got, the more she could hear them talking – Did they hear that they were to receive a transfer student? Did they wonder what a stranger like her was doing here? Were they, perhaps, chuckling to themselves about her appearance?

Oh, she hated being seen by others.

And yet –

While she firmly believed to feel their burning stares on her back in one moment, the next one had her doubting if anyone had noticed her at all. Was she not thoroughly unremarkable, if not completely invisible?

Weren't the others already arranged into groups, deeply immersed in their own conversations that she wouldn't dare to participate in, for fear that her voice would fail her within the very first syllable, like it had done so many times before, at so many different schools?

Exactly _because_ she knew that she didn't have what it took to pull this off, she kept her distance and made sure to avoid those clusters of pretty, popular girls who would curiously swarm around to ask newcomers eager questions. She had learn to keep to the shadows and maintain a heedful distance from anyone who might entrap her in conversation.

She was so very tired of herself.

Her inner sufferings and insecurities remained hidden from view; All they could see was a strange, silent girl that was, at most, worth a cursory glance, but rarely ever a second one. That was all anyone ever saw and would ever see of her: Her mere surface, her ugly body, her hapless gestures and her quiet little voice.

If first impressions were all that really mattered, she would lose out right away, and she'd never learned how to amend this. So it was the same in every school, no matter where she went – She hadn't taken long to realize that the problem lay with her and not with the others.

She was the only one to blame if no one could see how her soul was slowly burning up like a comet in free fall as she entered the school grounds in the belief that she knew beyond all doubt what awaited her there.

She was the only one to blame if she had hidden herself away, and she only wondered why she hadn't been more consequent in that and just stayed in bed, instead of coming all this way to suffer through the inevitable.

She could have chosen to call in sick today, and it would not have been a great lie. Even now, she believed she could feel the low pounding that was slowly but steadily pumping all life from her form. She couldn't have said why, but ever since she had come to this town, she couldn't shake the feeling that it had been getting worse and worse.

But in the end, it was merely discomfort, no sharp, acute pain that would have justified troubling her father and staying home, lest he feel bound to staying home with her.

No, the last thing she wanted was to be a burden to anyone else ever again...

Since she had nothing to add, it was the least she could do to take as little as she could.

 

Thus, she made herself step into this new school's lobby as it would be expected of an obedient daughter and looked for the shoe locker labelled with her assigned number. As she opened it to retrieve the slippers she was supposed to use during her time in this school building, as always, cautious and fraught with an underlying fear that she might break something.

As she put them on – again, carefully and using as little touch as possible, as if she felt compelled to refrain from 'tainting' public property with her filthy hands – she overheard a conversation between a group of four students, which had just been joined by a fifth one:

“Good morning, Ikari-kun.” greeted the only female voice that could be recognized from the group's direction. 'Ikari-kun'. On her way here, the silent observer had found that name on the list of numerous girls, some of which had been gushing about his 'cuteness' – The mere idea that she might just be sharing this parcel of space with the local heartthrob kept her petrified and ensured that she painstakingly avoided turning around as she adjusted her new school slippers, hoping much like an Ostrich that they would return the favor in kind and refrain from noticing her.

Just the thought that the conversation was still going on behind her back was enough to flush her face with shameful redness. It wasn't as if she had been eavesdropping on purpose... she just happened to be close by... and the declining quality of the flimsy excuses she kept making for herself should fill her with shame.

“What happened to your face?” One of the boys somewhere behind her asked somewhat teasingly. He had a thick Osaka accent, but the boy who spoke next didn't, but he still spoke with the same, congenially-teasing tone: “Another lover's quarrel with Shikinami?”

'Shikinami' was another name that she silent girl had picked up with some frequency.

Was she that popular boy's girlfriend?

No, that didn't seem right...

As the lonely girl rose to her face and turned away from the shoe lockers to begin the search for her new classroom, her gaze briefly grazed the nearby group of teens, though not without prompting a quiet, yet audible “Huh?” from her lips for which she immediately chided herself with shame. She could only hope that no one had heard it.

She really hadn't mean to... eavesdrop or... spy on anyone, let alone stare at them, but...

But still, she couldn't help but wonder. The group of youths she had just observed was composed of some rather diverse people that one would not expect to find in one place, but none of them really looked like your typical 'popular boy' and his friends – indeed, they looked more like the sort of people that you would expect to find at the edges of any given school's social hierarchy: First of, there was a girl that somehow managed to have an authoritative aura about her despite her freckles, twin pigtails and girlish purple hair decorations. Then, there was the boy with the accent who could easily be recognized as the local classroom jester – He may have been fairly tall, tanned and not without his share of muscles and wore his shiny black hair in a modern, hair gel-aided style, but the coolness points that might have added were quickly depleted by his unapologetic wide grin, his outward-pointing ears and the goofy way his school bag's carrying strap was somehow hanging off his head, not to speak that he seemed determined to disregard the dress code. And then, there was the short, freckled, bespectacled boy with a short, rounded nose and a messily worn school uniform, who didn't exactly comform to wiely accepted beauty standards either.

There was also a fourth boy with a rather noticeable, thick bandage around his head – He was not short, but his lanky build more than made up for it. With his stylish, chin-lenght dark hair he might have been the closest to the average schoolgirl's preferences, but since he had barely spoken and presented a much more serious demeanor than his more easily amused friends, it was implied that he, too, was not exactly your typical people person.

But it was this 'Ikari-kun' himself who surprised her the most:

Sure, he _was_ attractive, but it was more that fragile sort of beauty that was only noticed on the second glance; On the first one, he might have been dismissed as somewhat nondescript.

He had little in common with the humorous, charming and masculine types that would be your usual high school heartthrobs. Normally, most of the girls she'd overheard on her way here might not even know the names of these kinds of boys, no matter how unfair it might seem.

The way he stood there, his uniform shirt neatly tucked into his pants, keeping his hands close to his body as if he didn't know what to do with them... the clear, apparent awkwardness in his reactions to his friends' teasing...

He looked more like the sort of person who would avoid the center of attention like the plague.

He looked almost, well... a little like _herself._

 

“It- it wasn't like that at all, Kensuke, what happened was-”

Remaining on a friendly tone but beginning to display sure signs of feeling somewhat uncomfortable with the situation, he hoped to clarify this misunderstanding before anyone got the wrong idea.

But luck wasn't on his side.

Before he could even begin with his explanation, he was interrupted by a visibly annoyed girl who had apparently just entered the foyer.

Immediately, the silent girl in the distance realized that this had to be 'Shikinami' – She had long, red hair with a pair of very unusual hair clips in it – she didn't think that she'd ever seen anything like these anywhere before. As for Shikinami herself, she clearly must have had at least a few foreigners in her lineage, probably some Central Europeans or Americans.

But even clearer was the impression of her as the sort of person who always straight-up took what she wanted, and never hesitated to speak her mind, no matter what.

Exactly the kind of popular and successful student that the transferee would never measure up to... granted, the transferee may have been a good student herself, but if you were the kind of person that the transferee was, all that made you was some pitiful nerd whose introversion would readily be confused with arrogance.

This 'Shikinami' person was different.

At a glance, she could be recognized as the sort that everyone admired and looked up to. The kind that probably spent all day laughing about the less fortunate or popular girls.

The entitlement with which she moved and talked spoke volumes, but even so, her directness would probably have been considered an additional feature to her attractiveness.

If she was this boy's girlfriend, the rest of the school didn't stand a chance.

But fortunately (?) it did not appear that the two were actually an item – Quite the opposite.

Judging by the way she marched straight toward the boy and closed the distance between them without reacting much to his obvious discomfort, it looked more like he was a regular customer on her list of people to pick on – Or, perhaps, she was simply very pissed off at him right now and made no pretense of hiding it – After all, she had no reason to do so.

“It wasn't _like that_?” she repeated, ostensibly finding something insulting in these words. “I'll tell you what it was like: This idiotic peeping top got to see me naked this morning!”

“What? Is that true, Shinji?” Kensuke immediately asked.

Interestingly, he sounded more envious than appalled.

“It was an accident!”

Kensuke, of course, doubled down on this: “What's that supposed to mean?”

“It means that it was her own da-... that it was actually Shikinami-san's fault.”

“Lazy Excuses!” the Second Child retorted. “Either you looked at me, or you didn't, and you definitely did!”

“Well, yes, but...”

In the background, Hikari had already come to her own conclusion: “I thought you were better than this, Ikari-kun.” This situation was looking anything but rosy for Shinji... this was all one huge misunderstanding, and Asuka was just making it worse and worse... perhaps, she was determined to convince the student body beyond all doubts that they were most definitely _not_ a couple, which, in the context of Shinji's kinda-sorta secret admiration stung more than the slap had.

Especially since Asuka continued to express her dislike of his person: “Bah! If you didn't look away of your own free will you have no one to blame but yourself!”

“But, uh-”

Since Asuka had insisted on filling as much of his field of vision as she possibly could with her undoubtedly cute, but still distinctly angry face, he only noticed the small speck of blue in its periphery out of the corner of his eyes.

In a rare instance of overlooking the deadly danger right in front of him in favor of his curiosity, he glanced past Asuka's fiery crown of hair to discover the presence of none other but Ayanami Rei.

She wasn't walking particularly fast, but rather steadily, wearing her usual school uniform and carrying a bag with her. She kept her gaze pointed straight ahead without allowing anything else to catch her attention, as if she knew of no other directions.

Though she had missed out on the class trip for reasons much like Asuka's and Shinji's, he'd barely seen any of her this week and when he did, it had been at NERV whenever they had both been called there for synchronization tests or the handling of the incident – even their one 'private' encounter by the swimming pool had taken place on NERV property, prompting Shinji to wonder if he had truly made that much progress in fulfilling his aim of getting closer to her.

After the incident on the Futagoyama, there had been all these feelings, and in the heat of the moment he had found himself earnestly talking to her and taking her hand before he even knew it – but in a normal, every day situation, his regular hangups reasserted themselves, making it distinctly harder, and knowing her, he could hardly expect her to initiate contact on her own accord...

Like ever so often, Shinji struggled to take the second step before the first one, standing frozen in the threshold, unable to reach the decision to go on and contact her without hiding behind a pretext... and just like that, a full three weeks had all but passed him by.

Sure, once school had started up again, they had resumed in their brief morning dialogues, simply because they had become too much of a habit by now.

They were quiet, pleasant, peaceful moments in his turbulent life that had come to be dominated by loud, forward people like Touji, Asuka and Misato, but that didn't change that they barely ever went beyond 'Hello, how are you?” and the like.

Yesterday, Rei had reciprocated the question. That was probably a success but not a huge one, especially considering how incoherent his answer had been.

Today, it seemed that he would not be so lucky: Though he saw her walking past the building, it did not seem like she intended to turn in order to enter the school's foyer, remaining outside the mesh wire fence that lined the school grounds... which raised the question of what she was even doing here....

“Hey, Daddy's boy! Are you even listening to what I'm saying? What are you even looking at!”

If there was one thing that Asuka Langley-Shikinami couldn't stand, it was being ignored. She hated the mere idea that something could be more interesting than her, particularly, if it was the object of her secret wishes that was looking right past her.

“Uhm... it's just... Ayanami is over there.”

Somewhat taken by surprise, Asuka swiftly turned around to confirm it, and indeed, there she was: The First Child, going on her way in an almost mechanical manner, carrying out her orders like a robot without even taking the time to say hello to them.

“Where do you think she's going?” the Third Child asked, apparently all busy trying to make sense of her.

Unacceptable! Being ignored in favor of that... that arrogant bitch was the last thing Asuka needed today. Not only did that idiot Third Child fail to notice the obvious, no, now he was flat out ignoring her while she was standing right in front of him, and at that, for the sake of her bitterest enemy... did he _want_ another

“She's not coming to school today. She's only here because there's an entrance to the geofront around here. They'll be needing Wondergirl at headquarters today, for an activation experiment with Unit Zero. Apparently they've managed to put that rusty bucket back together, though one wonders why they even bothered, now that the prototype is thoroughly obsolete...” she explained.

“Aha...”

Which meant that Rei would soon be following the two of them into battle. Perhaps, there would soon be three of them ready to face the enemy at any given time.

It would be good to have plenty of reinforcements.

“Hey! Are you ignoring me again? Don't space out on me like that... It's like you have no remorse at all for what happened this morning! Don't think that this won't have consequences!”

As Asuka seemed to be nearing a meltdown with every passing second, Touji made the courageous decision to protect his friends from further bruises by grabbing him from behind and pulling him away from their enraged classmate.

“Cut it out, you two!” he implored with a somewhat forced smile, hoping to defuse the situation.

Kensuke, who, at first, had seemed a little perplexed, but then quickly picked up on what his friend was trying to do, likewise produced his best conciliatory smile, and added: “Right! You can finish your talk later without causing a commotion here... Come to think of it, the bell should be ringing any moment now, isn't that right, Nagato?”

“Uh...” Nagato, who had never been a lover of crowds and could barely believe the events that had just taken place in front of his eyes, decided after some brief looking around that the best course action would be to simply nod, in part due to some home that it would get him away from Asuka's brashness and all this talk about naked girls.

“There you see it!” Touji continued, as he grabbed his still rather intimidated friend by the shoulders to prevent him from remaining glued in place. “Let's go, Shinji!”

“Uh...”

Without wasting further time, Touji, Kensuke and Nagato (who couldn't quite decide if he was ) absconded their friend to safety before Asuka had the opportunity to break his neck.

However, she did not let him get away without yelling “You Coward!” after him.

Hikari chose to comment the whole incident with a sigh and stepped toward her friend, turning the topic of the discussion toward the general idiocy of the juvenile human male.

 

\----

 

As it had taken place some time before the first battle, back when everyone was still in the uncertain state of uncertainty and preparation for a threat whose return had still been doubted, Kaji had initially not paid much attention to that particular report, but now, he couldn't help but find the reports of that supposed terrorist attack suspiciously vague.

Directing his questions to his superiors at the internal affairs bureau merely confirmed his suspicions – Had this 'terrorist attack' been nothing more than a coverup to hide a different secret?

His best move would probably be to 'test' the gentlemen from SEELE by playing dumb and reporting the incident under the pretext of having found proof of rogue actions on Ikari's part. Even if there was a good chance that they would be speaking exclusively in cryptic metaphors, if there was a chance that they would tell him something, he had to take advantage of it...

 

\---

 

“By the way, guys, did you hear that we're supposed to get a transferee?”

The four boys had been on their way to their classroom when the innocuous question above was injected into their conversation, by none other than Kensuke, who, as always, appeared to be ahead of them in the information department.

“What, for real?” Touji exclaimed in surprise. “So far it's been looking like we're getting less and less with every passing week. I was positive that Nagato would be our last transferee.”

“Do you think they'll be somehow involved in the angel situation?” Nagato asked with a hint of concern.

Kensuke kept his calm smile: “Nah, most likely, she'll be in the same boat as the three of us, and her parents work for NERV.”

 

As they spoke, none of them noticed the silent girl whose feet shadowed their steps, clad in long dark socks and observing as the lively noises of their conversations drowned out any audible sign of her existence, wishing that just once, she too might be able to belong somewhere...

 

\---

 

“H-Hello, I'm new in town and I'm glad to meet you all.” the transferee stated once she was dne writing her name onto the table.

Unlike Asuka, who had confidently smeared her name all the way across the table, the newcomer's thin, simple writing seemed confinend to a narrow clearly delineated row as if she were afraid to cross some sort of invisible boundaries.

It occurred to Shinji that a long, long time ago, before a number of days that already felt longer than it had actually been, his own name on the blackboard must have looked somewhat like that.

Mayumi looked to be the sort of girl who had one day been convinced that she was somehow ugly in defiance of any objective reasons, and had longed to dissapear from people's views ever since this day – It was apparent in the hesitant sound of her voice and the visibly nervous manner in which she appraised her new classmates while she tried her best to manage a smile in spite of her awkwardness and insecurity.

You could tell from the posture of her shoulders, and the way her hands were holding on to each other in front of her body as if she wanted to comfort herself or simply didn't know what to do about her hands and the sweat on them.

It was not hard to imagine where the transferee might see her alleged flaws: She was a good amount taller than most other girls and Shinji even suspected that she stood higher than he did – At least, he'd heard that tallness was something girls sometimes felt ashamed of even though it was, in actuality, anything but unpopular with the gentlemen, and similar things could be said about the feminine curves of her hips which some may have considered 'pudgy'.

She had long, shiny black that had been cut off straight just a little below her shoulders, or slightly above her eyes in the case of her forehead bangs. Most of it fell heavily down her back, but left and right of her face, a few strands hung onto her chest, whose dimensions were on the upper side of average. Her eyes were a pretty light grey, but required some large, round eyeglasses for optimal functionality that she may or may not have seen as a further negative, along with the rather pale skin on her slender limbs and a single beauty mark to the lower right of her lips.

Wearing what had probably been the uniform at her old school, consisting of a moss green folded skirt, a white blouse and a yellow sweater vest, she looked kind of love.

In actuality, Shinji thought she was rather cute, she could easily have made it into the top 5 list of the cutest girls in class. Or at least he thought so – something about her hesitant manner and seemingly fragile exterior pulled at his protective instincts...

“Welcome to our class!” the old teacher greeted her. “So, where are you going to sit? Right, the spot next to Horaki-san is still free, would that be okay with you?”

“Of course!” Hikari assured them, as always on her best, exemplary behavior.

In almost no time, Mayumi had sat down on her new spot, hung her bag onto the hook intended for it, and turned to Hikari in order to greet her with a smile that was awkward but still endearing in its sincerity: “It's nice to meet you.”

“It's nice to meet you, too!”

 

\---

 

Then, class had started, and, as it often did, derailed into a lengthy retelling of anecdoted concerning Second Impact that would have been hard to follow even if Shinji weren't hearing them for the millionth time, knowing full well that a sizable chunk about it was merely propaganda.

Too many other things were taking up space in his thoughts, and the new student was just one peripheral part of that. More out of simple carelessness than any malicious motivations, he had dared to take a closer look at her once everyone else was back to either paying attention in class or nodding off on their tables – Or at least, that had been his intention, for as soon as he diverted his glance in her direction, he realized that she, too, had been looking in his direction for reasons unknown, and thus immediately noticed his wandering eyes.

(He was after all, unaware that he'd caught her attention earlier in the Foyer.)

But rather than smiling, simply looking back or somehow getting angry, the bespectacled girl frantically looked away like she'd been caught doing something dirty before the Third Child had an opportunity to do exactly the same.

He just hoped that he hadn't made a bad first impression – not that he hadn't always been an 'expert' at these: When he'd first met Misato, he'd ended up running out of the bath naked, in Rei's case, he'd ended up _accidentally groping her_ , not to speak of Asuka... despite his ongoing efforts to soothe the waters, he couldn't seem to stop offending her.

Wondering if he was still upset at him, he let his glance wander a few rows ahead to where her seat was. How long would it take this time until she'd be willing to resume speaking to him in way, shape or form?

Well, her reaction to his repeated failure to look in a discrete, inconspicuous way led him to suspect that it was still going to take a while – As soon as she noticed him, she stuck out her tongue at him.

At least he could rest assure that the third spot in the classroom that might attract his attention to it would not meet him with any sort of negative reaction... for the table there was empty. It was Rei's.

Just about now, it's owner should be arriving at NERV to take part in this experiment... and though he liked the thought of having her by his side on the battlefield once again, he had not forgotten that it was this exact type of experiment that had caused her initial injuries that had left her wrapped in bandages the first time he'd seen her.... admittedly, last time it had gone off without a hitch and she had been able to contribute to the fight, but he couldn't help but feel a little worried... Last time, the activation experiment had taken place on an afternoon and he'd been able to watch alongside Misato (or perhaps, they had arranged things to keep him on site in case of another mishap) but now, he wondered how long it would take for him to find out about a catastrophe if one were to take place...

 

\---

 

What was to be merely a pretext or a lie turned out to be the surprising truth – none of the men of SEELE's inner circle knew anything about this 'Project Kronos', and so, it was easily concluded that it was indeed one of Ikari's misdeeds.

“If that is the case, I might be able to-”

Kaji's offer was rejected. Apparently, it was deemed unnecessary for him to take any further action – Did this mean that the old men already suspected him?

No, no, he shouldn't let this disquiet him. This was merely SEELE's modus operandi, their tendecy to leave individual underlings in the dark as much as possible – They preferred to have many independent little agents manufacturing little building blocks for a greater whole that only they had the blueprint from. Just like a real soul, or real consciousness, could not be localized in any one specific part of the brain, SEELE liked to keep their subordinates as decentralized as they could afford, limited only by the number of resources, facilities and skilled personnel...

They wanted to minimize the chance that any one person could work out the truth (like, for example, himself), or perhaps it was supposed to avoid a scenario where any one individual – such as Ikari – would be able to amass too much power while making himself far too indispensable to get rid of.

Nonetheless, even a will as absolute as theirs required a means by which to act upon the world: If they thought that they could resolve the issue without involving him any further, that meant that SEELE had to have _another_ agent embedded deep between the ribs of NERV... but _whom?_ Who could it be?

Simply put, as things were now, he had no means to find this out.

The matter was out of his hands... if he wished to get closer to the truth, this left him with but a single choice:

He had to warn Ikari.

 

\----

 

Once, in the good old days before Second Impact, there had been this wonderful tradition that school would end early if the summer heat exceeded a certain threshold – or at least, that was the legend told by old children's movies, wherein the blessed students of the past would be relieved from the burden of class to spend the best and sunniest days eating ice cream and splashing around in the local pools.

With regards to the weather situation that had asserted itself after Second Impact, this would have mean that school would be out early every other day, so that it had been decided that the old rule no longer made much sense. Of course, a modern city like Neo Tokyo-3 had air conditioning in all its classrooms, but that wasn't much use to Touji, Kensuke or Shinji when they were stuck outside for their physical education classes.

Nagato had been fortunate enough to be excluded from PE due to his head injury, though that had Shinji wondering just how much longer it would take until it was healed enough for him to participate – Even Rei had rejoined regular PE classes ages ago, and yet, he didn't think that the cast around the younger Mitsurugi's head had become any thinner in all the time he'd been going to their school.

Then again, Shinji had to admit that he didn't really know how long this type of injury generally took to heal... or what type of injury it even was.

One way or another, the final result was that the 'idiot quartet' was one man short as they baked in the sun next to the school's running tacks.

Had Nagato been here with them, he might well have objected to their current activities, for nearly as soon as they'd caught their breaths after running several laps across the sport grounds, the sweaty boys had found their solace in the sight of the swimsuit-clad girls who were themselves busy in and around the school's swimming pool.

“Always all this jogging!” Touji complained. “Meanwhile, the B-class gets to play basketball and the girls get to cool off in the swimming pool. I think I could turn green with envy!”

“By the way, guys...” Kensuke then began. “Have you thought of something to do for the upcoming school festival?”

“Meh. I can't see the point.” Touji opined. “Our fathers are far too busy to show up.”

“That might be true, but I can think of at least one person who will most definitely show up...”

“And who would that be?”

“Well, of course, Misato-san! It's practically part of her job! Think about it: Anything remotely related to the education of our dear friend here is part of her duties. Short of an angel attack, she's practically _guaranteed_ to show up.”

The mention of the M-word immediately caught Touji's attention. “You sure? That changes things dramatically...”

 

At this point, Shinji, who had been busy with his own thoughts either way, tuned them out completely, thoroughly distracted by the swimsuit-clad girls who took turns jumping in the water, swimming around in it with various techniques, or simply conversed with each other.

This time, Rei was, of course, not among them.

But this time, it was Mayumi who caught his attention, much like she had back then – She wasn't standing aside or sitting somewhere by herself, but stood in line with everyone else who was waiting their turn to swim their rounds, but she wasn't talking to anyone, and kept her gaze lowered, as if she'd much rather be anywhere else than stand up there among all these people... She looked lonely, and he would expect that she might secretly long to talk to some of the other girls much like he had once wished that he had the courage to approach Rei back when _he_ had been new.

She stood frozen in the threshold, afraid to take one step after the other.

Hence, she remained just as alone as he had been during his first few weeks at this school. “The transferee... she looks a bit like me, doesn't she?”

Except, that he now had a fair number of people around him, while she was standing there all alone.

And Shinji knew enough of what it was like to be all alone to know that no one deserved this.

But no matter what half-baked decision he might have come to as he thought these words, it disintegrated into thin air when Mayumi seemed to notice him of all sudden.

She turned in his direction, an anxious twitch went through her entire body, and then, she turned away and hastily removed herself from his field of vision.

Just great.

Yet another girl that must be thoroughly convinced that he was a total pervert within hours of meeting him... Discouraged, he lowered his head...

“Heey, what's so interesting up there?”

Kensuke's sudden question was probably owed to his evident lack of attention to his and Touji's conversation, but at least, he didn't seem to have caught onto what had just taken place.

“Uh... nothing, really...” he answered.

As it might have roused his friends' suspicions if he kep avoiding their gazes, and didn't feel like discussing his concerns, he chose to look at whatever Touji was looking at – though Shinji had not expect that direction to lead him to the very same class representative whose abrasiveness the taller boy so loved to complain of.

She was actually fairly good looking, but not exactly Shinji's type... much unlike the person who must have noticed them and jumped in their line of sight to mock them with another hearty “Bleeeh!”

Great.

No need to check on Asuka separately – She was _most definitely_ still angry: “What are you looking at? Are you staring at me again, you Perv?!” she shouted vigorously, not concerned that the volume necessary for him to hear her all the way down here would expose half the school to this conversation – All peacefulness aside, this was too much even for him.

“It's not like I was looking at _you_!” he retorted – it didn't sound as fiery as he'd initially intended, but at least, he'd jumped to his feet in order to communicate his opinion standing on both legs.

This might have impressed her, if she didn't regard his statement as a kind of outrageous sacrilege that couldn't possibly me true.

(She was not so unattractive that he'd be uninterested in her of all people, right?)

He expected her to believe that he hadn't been looking at her? Bah, humbug!

(She hated being ignored more than anything)

“Yeah sure! You can keep your excuses to yourself!”

“That's no excuse, it's the _truth_!”

“As if! At the very least, you could act like a man and admit it!”

Determined to tell him exactly what she thought of him in both word and deed, Asuka reached for a nearby broom.

“Hey miss loony, you do know that you could hit someone with that, right?” Touji interjected, as he'd never particularly liked the Second Child to begin with.

“Exactly!” she'd responded immediately. “Though not even this broom might be enough to stuff your big mouth!”

Since Touji had apparently taking over the fighting, The Third Child retired to his seat with a sigh and hoped that the two would stop making such a spectacle of themselves sometime soon.

At least Kensuke acted somewhat reasonable and did not seem particularly pleased with the local war craft: “Oh, what peace and what quiet...”

 

\----

 

Of course, he didn't reveal just who exactly had revealed the existence of “Project Kronos” to SEELE.

But by the looks of it, both Fuyutsuki and Ikari already _had_ a plausible suspect, and it wasn't him.

In fact, he got the impression that these two already suspected who the second agent could be... how Ikari could remain this calm in the knowledge that his organization might be this badly compromised was a mystery to him – After all, it looked a lot like his dear project, the magnum opus for whose he'd been pulling strings in the dark for years, might find itself on shaky ground.

But perhaps this was the personality one needed to have to survive in this kind of position.

That man never showed an ounce of weakness – that much had become very clear to Kaji a long time ago.

 

\---

 

With a thin grin, the woman known as Asahina Najiko closed her phone and put it back in her pocket. It seemed like she would be able to to that thing she had been longing to do, and that, much earlier than she would have thought.

 

\---

 

Regarding the barney during PE class, it sufficed to say that Touji and Asuka were still busy exchanging insults by the time they had both changed back into their school uniforms and made their way back to their classroom, where Kensuke and Nagato barely succeeded in talking them down before the teacher arrived, narrowly avoiding a scenario where she'd demand to know exactly what was going on leading to their thorough humiliation.

Luckily, she ended up leaving the classroom without ever finding out what the fuss was all about.

Despite his courageous volunteering as an arbiter, even Nagato was only told that he 'didn't really want to know' once he asked for details of how the quarrel had started.

But after yet another teacher had come and gone, the bell rang to announce the lunch break, and Shinji didn't really know what to do with it – Touji, Kensuke and Nagato had bid their farewell to make their way to the cafeteria, but Shinji didn't have much of an appetite... or perhaps, he simply wanted to avoid a confrontation with either Mayumi or Asuka.

Thus, he'd remained behind in the classroom, together with a small flock of girls who were using their break to play cards. Usually, at least Rei could be relied upon to stay behind as well, invariably spending her lunch breaks sitting at her usual spot besides the window as she always did... but today, she was busy with something else.

He idly wondered if they'd already begun the experiment down in NERV HQ.

Who knows, they might even be done with it by now.

It then occurred to him that, at least in theory, he could just go and ask – The closest access point to the geofront was pretty much right around the corner, to ensure that they could be carted off to headquarters in a manner of minutes if an angel were to attack during school hours... If he kept a brisk pace and didn't idle around, he might manage to go down and check on her and make it back before the lunch break would end, or at the very least, he should not be tremendously late.

He'd never considered it before, but it might actually work...

But if he wanted to pull it off, he had to leave _right now._ For once in his life, he had to quit hesitating and act fast before the limited window of opportunity would close.

Perhaps... just maybe... this might be his chance to follow that first step that he'd taken after the battle on the futagoyama's molten slopes with a second one.

He didn't waste another second in getting a move on, but still didn't quite dare to run in the halways, at least not while he couldn't be sure that he was all by himself. He much rather tiptoed across the school corridors, the streets, and eventually, the facilities down at the geofront – He was not actually supposed to leave the school grounds at this time, and even if he worked here and had a valid security card to get him around the facility, no one had asked him to come here, and none of the adults knew of his presence.

Anyone who knew who he was was bound to ask him uncomfortable questions.

Even though it was noon, he felt much like a thief in the night on some kind of cloak and dagger mission... so, the shock hit just that much harder when he came face to face with just not any, but _the_ authority figure.

He'd found the upper facilities of the geofront conveniently empty, but once he got to NERV HQ, his luck deserted him before he could even enter the pyramid's central elevators in the ground level foyer, where their doors opened to bring him face to face with the _last_ person in this whole, wide world that he wanted to be answering questions to.

He was met with his highest superior, the nightmare of his childhood and, last but not least with his own father, all those functions unified in the shape of a tall, broad-shouldered man in an imposing, jet black uniform who stood before him like a wall, dwarfed him like a tower and coldly stared down at him through oval, tinted glasses:

Commander Ikari Gendo of NERV.

Shinji was completely at his mercy, feeling very small and lost.

Frozen in place, he already understood that he would not be able to board this elevator.

His consciousness flooded with the urge to simply turn and run, run, run to the ends of the earth, without ever looking back, just like he'd done on that day three years ago.

Swallowing, he used every morsel of willpower that he might have gained during the last weeks and moths, and forced himself to look into the eyes of the man who was ultimately little more than a terrifying, dark-clad stranger.

He stopped himself from considering if anything had changed since he had been that helpless, lost child from back them, though his cries from back then very much echoed through his consciousness.

He didn't know if that even 'counted' in any way, but by now, he was very sure that he no longer _wanted_ to be locked in that moment.

His eyes shot up to face that star-crossed day's distant shadow, and were answered by the rough, deep, dispassionate voice of an unkempt old man:

“Shouldn't you be at school?”

The Third Child's first instinct was to tell him that that was none of his business – He hadn't forgotten how laughably irrelevant his life had been to this man just last week, when he'd been ready and willing to sacrifice him, Misato, Asuka and many other innocents to correct a mistake, offered them up as bargaining chips to fire, volcanoes and bombs in case one of his gambles were to turn awry... but then, the boy realized that the man had just spoken to him, and, at that, expressed some however passing interest in the going-ons of his person in a way that had little to do with his function as an EVA pilot... Did his father actually care to make sure that he stayed in school and made the most out of his education, or was he merely so pathetic that he would try and convince himself of that?

Whichever of these may have been the truth, the mere possibility led the Third Child to hesitate and reconsider his answer, so that it morphed from the spontaneous, thoughtless eruption of emotion he's first had in mind into a regular, functional statement:

“I... I heard that the activation experiment for Unit Zero is taking place today, a-and I thought-”

“Unit One will not be involved in the experiment. You have no business in headquarters right now.”

_That callous old bastard...!_

The elevator doors closed before Shinji had any opportunity to react – Ironically, he had good reason to believe that that man had been headed in the same direction as himself.

His face did somewhat contort in anger, in good part, because he had again been treated with such cold rejection, but...

Some part of him could not help but note that this had almost, no, a _factual_ improvement by their standards, or at least his standards, if he considered how he had been completely unable to look him in the eye or speak a single word when they had encountered each other in a similar manner on the day after the first battle.

He was even hesitant to label it a bad or even a good conversation – the hive o swarming little voices in his mind seemed to bend over backwards to either embellish the encounter or badmouth his hopes.

The one thing he could agree on was that there _had_ been a conversation.

Perhaps the first one in years that had not consisted of orders.

With the mildest hint of rebellion lacing his gestures and expression, he continued on his way. He could still make up his mind after he was done checking on Rei.

 

\---

 

When he arrived in the vicinity of the test chamber, he found that the actual experiment had yet to take place – Rei had merely been summoned way in advance so they could subject her to some extensive but routine tests and checkups to get those out of the way while everyone else was still working on the instrument calibrations and the technical prepping of the Evangelion, with that last point having taken up way more time than initially planned for because they were still struggling to minimize a feedback problem in the interface, whatever that was supposed to mean – Shinji had merely heard the reports of the omnipresent computer voices and deduced the rest, so it wasn't like he could ask anyone to elaborate.

But be it by mistake or oversight, the universe seemed to be slacking in its efforts to make his life as hard, complicated and awkward as humanly possible, so that Shinji was lucky enough to find Rei in the changing rooms; Most mercifully, she was even finished changing an already wearing her plugsuit.

When she heard him enter, she reacted at most with a minimal whiff of mystification as she briefly turned her heard to ascertain who had just walked in.

By the time he'd heard the automatic door closing behind him, she was back to staring straight ahead into the void in her usual manner.

Shinji did not let this discourage him; He was already used to this trait of hers and knew that it did not necessarily mean that she refused to pay attention to him.

He could not overlook that she had his father's old glasses resting next to her on the changing room's central bench.

Consequently, he stepped further into the room (it didn't help that this was technically the girl's locker, even if Asuka wasn't here, and Rei was highly unlikely to bring it up to him) and sat down alongside her, though in this context 'alongside' meant that he chose to sit at the edge of the bench that was a little closer to her than the other one, facing in the same direction.

The room left between them would still have been enough for an adult man.

There was a file of lockers behind their backs that ended somewhere between the spots they were seated in and formed a clear, sharp line of division that neither of them dared to touch, let alone cross with as much as the hems of their clothes.

Rei did not seem to see any reason to look at him and the Third Child felt sheepish about looking straight at her now that she was in such immediate proximity to his person and sealed in that white plugsuit that underlined her feminine curves and still made her look even more fragile than she usually did, as if were made of porcelain.

Surprisingly, it was her who spoke first, thus sparing him the frantic scramblic for something to say:

“Why are you not at school?” she asked.

It was a simple, genuine question without a hint of accusation.

“You know, my father just asked me the same thing...”

“And what did Commander Ikari say about your presence?”

“He told me to go back to school... I guess.”

“Then I am going to tell you that very same thing.”

“B-But...!”

“There has neither been an alert, nor is there any experiment taking place hat would concern you. There is no reason for you to be here.”

“Yes, I know, ….but...”

What should he say? He'd already pretty much given up and risen to his feet, but that unfinished sentence was still hanging in the hair.

What now? The truth? That _had_ worked last time, but the thing about truth was that it wasn't any easier to say just because it was true.

“I... I... uhm, the thing is, I was worried about you, Ayanami.”

So, there it was. The secret was out. Had he really said that out loud just now?

“Is that so?”

She'd spoken softly and flatly, and her expression did not reveal what, if any emotional reaction his words had caused for her.

“Don't be. There is no reason for you to be worried. I'm fine. You should go back.”

 

\---

 

And that was precisely what he did.

What else should he have done?

While his steps had been quickened by hurry and tension on his way here, it was a cold, sober feeling that now led him to forget that he might still be expected somewhere.

Instead, he went about his way in a slow, lethargic manner, his gaze lowered and his mind regretting that he hadn't thought of taking his music player when he'd embarken on his 'journey'.

By now, Rei was probably being called for the experiment, and if anything went wrong, he might not hear from it until Misato would return from work in the late afternoon.

He might have pulled off that whole thing about taking a second step, but he had probably bungled the third; Or perhaps, he'd just been deceiving himself with wrong expectations.

No matter how much resolve it had cost him, ultimately he'd just come all this way to bother her when she had more important things to do...

Much like with that conversation with his father, he didn't know what to make of this – It was always an unique challenge to try to make sense of Rei, and both of them could seem rather unapproachable at times...

It was hard to offer Rei any support when the dangerous experiment she was forced to take place in did not even seem to faze her, if she would accept being used as a human guinea pig like it was the most normal thing in the world... And perhaps, it _was_ the most normal thing in the world, at least to her –

Even Asuka kept bragging about how she had been trained since early childhood, and judging by her assigned designation, she must have been recruited sometime _after_ the 'First Child'.

There was a good chance that Rei had been putting up with these experiments for as long as she could remember and had never known anything other than the program. Even still, hear fearlessness was enviable.

In that point, Shinji and Rei were very, very different. Even though she looked so fragile, her slight little form hid immense inner strenght, always ready to do what must be done no matter the cost, never flinching before the horrors she was made to face...

It was very hard to protect or support someone like that.

But at least he'd made an effort to come here, to show her that he cared... unless all his impressions about her personality were mistaken, at least that ought to be something that she could notice and find respite in...

Different as they were, if he wasn't completely mistaken, there was at one thing that they had in common: They were both used to living in a very dark, bleak world, and so, they'd come to appreciate even the slightest bit of affection and even the weakest little light would brighten their lives.

He hoped that he'd understood at least _this_ about her, for if it were true, there might come a day when they would be able to understand each other, and share these feelings like nobody else could.

 

\---

 

After a workday that, so far, had been mostly dominated by paperwork, it seemed like Misato would get to assume her post in Central Dogma after all.

Rushing in, she wasted little time in cutting to the chase: “How did it go?”

“Successfully.” Dr. Akagi reported, taking the time to take a sip out of her coffee mug once she was done directing a few Instructions at Lt. Ibuki. “The feedback issues aren't fully under control yet and it might take some extensive fine-tuning until the EVA is running at peak efficiency, but broadly speaking, EVA 00 is ready for combat, and the general overhaul gave us plenty of opportunity to do some thorough upgrading... you'll find everything else in the database reports. ”

“Very well.” Misato aknowledged. “Now how about that thing I was contacted about? Something about a malfunction in the AT-field sensors?”

“We thought it was an error because readings like these weren't supposed to have any correspondence in reality. It looked like nonsense data. ” Hyuuga explained. “But we've just checked the corresponding systems for the fourth time, and that strange signature is still showing up.”

“Well in that case, we'll have to accept that they _do_ make sense. What kind of signatures?”

“Well, that is...”

“It's back again.” The bespectacled technician interjected before his blonde superior could finish. “It looks like an AT-field, but it's very weak and spread out over a huge area... It practically spans the entire city.”

“Can you analyze it?” Misato asked with a certain alarm.

Lt. Ibuki had been working on it before her superior even had the chance to ask:

“The pattern is orange. Everything else is identical to the last time we observed it.”

“Quick, check if there are any spikes in the field density.” Ritsuko ordered.

“If there are any, then their divergence must be too small or diffuse for us to track it over such a large area, or, it's confined to an area so small that it slips through our sensor grids.” Hyuuga opined.

“Could it be a sensor error after all?” Misato speculated.

“Perhaps not.” Hyuuga interjected. “We have a sharply bounded field density spike, no, the field has compacted itself. Radius is down to thirty meters... that hasn't happened before!”

“Pattern is changing to blue!” Ibuki exclaimed in alarm.

That alone convinced everyone in the room that they were dealing with something far more severe than a simple malfunction.

Those who didn't flinch into alertness had all levity fade from their faces.

“Is it an Engel?” Misato asked, her expression severe.

“Probably... No, wait, we have lost the target! The AT field has disappeared from all sensors!”

“The on-site scout helicopters confirm this.” Aoba informed them. “The spot where the target was being registered is completely empty... Or, to be exact, it's like nothing was ever there to begin with, the cameras at the pinpointed location did not register any changes, nor have we received any notification from any observatories.”

“So the angel... disappeared? Or was it an error after all?”

“Who knows.” Ritsuko commented, irritating her friend with her apparent nonchalance.

“What do you mean by that?”

“As humans, we are dependent on our five senses, and by extension, the instruments that we use to circumvent their limitations. One merely needs to trick these senses, and they'd already have succeeded at duping us into accepting an illusion. Sometimes, that doesn't even require deceptions. Everyone knows how looks can be deceiving, and how our first impressions are often mistaken.

Since the Angels are beings that exist to lead us to destruction, it only makes sense that they, at least some of them would use that weakness to their advantage.”

Misato dit not take long to catch her gist: “An invisible enemy?”

“Exactly. If we are to fully account for these readings, that appears to be a probable conclusion.”

“ _How_ probable?”

“According to the Magi...” the paused briefly to read the number from the smaller displays on her console. “...about 49%.”

The leader of the Operations Division paused in deliberation. The standard procedure upon the identification of an angel was to ring the alarm bells and ready the EVAs, but, where would you even send them in a case like this?

“Shouldn't we go on red alert and evacuate the city?” Hyuuga asked.

“Not yet. For now, make sure that there really are no sensor errors and send a research team to the site of that earlier localized pattern blue reading. If there's any further manifestations, try to analyze them insofar it is possible. If worst comes to worst... and if the Angel even exists... we might not be able to pinpoint it until it starts attacking us and causing visible damage. Therefore, I order that until further notice, at least one EVA pilot is to remain on guard at headquarters at all times.

Rei can't have gone far yet, she might still be in the geofront. Contact her.

And notify Commander Ikari, tell him to contact Dr. Akagi and myself to discuss further action...

 

\---

 

“So you are saying that we are facing an invisible angel?”

The aim of Fuyutsuki's question was, in part, to convince himself of their absurd predicament.

“So it would seem, yes.” the scientist confirmed.

“Understood. Captain Katsuragi?”

“Yes, Commander?”

“I agree with your proceedings so far. Since we cannot localize the enemy, our best bet right now is to stay on guard.”

Even the last preemptive strike had been a risky gamble.

The old men still believed them to be unwise and did not need to know that he was following his own strategy on the matter.

“Since this angel intends to destroy us, it will be forced to reveal itself sooner or later in order to attack us. Once it does, we'll be able to destroy it much like its predecessors. Continue as before. The First Child is to remain on guard at headquarters until further notice. ”

“Yes, Sir.”

 

\---

 

“No, Sir, Captain Katsuragi has not been informed as of yet. She is set to formally receive the weekly surveillance reports on both Children under her jurisdiction this Friday, unless there is some incident of more urgent relevance. Should this be omitted from the report?”

“That won't be necessary, Lt. Asahina.” the Commander judged.

“I concur.” Fuyutsuki commented. “I see no reason to risk the unnecessary attention that a coverup could draw to the matter. I assume that Captain Katsuragi will come to her own conclusions; It's not like there is anything especially suspicious about a fourteen year old boy expressing worry about a classmate. You are dismissed.”

“Understood, Sir.”

After a brief bow, the woman in black turned to leave.

The pair of older men only resumed once the door had been closed for several silent seconds.

“Ikari... Aren't you concerned that she might suspect something?”

“You've said it yourself. Just an ordinary worried teenager. He was not supposed to be at headquarters, it would have been more suspicious if we _hadn't_ requested a report.”

Fuyutsuki averted his gaze, turning toward the window.

“So it is certain that your son came here because of Rei's test?”

“The probability borders on certainty. By the looks of it, everything is going according to plan.”

Fuyutsuki had great doubts that this was something they should be accomplished about, but as usual, he kept his thoughts to himself.

 

\---

 

Whether there may have been a theoretical possibility for Shinji to get back in time for his next class if he'd hurried up was still an open question, but at least in practice, he had not pulled it off today.

By the time he returned, he was almost half an hour late and didn't have any believable lies to show for himself.

He briefly thought of claiming that he'd had to attend to some NERV-related duties, but than ran the risk that the teacher might demand a written notice from Misato, or that Asuka might rat him out.... fortunately, this particular teacher seemed to be more of a pragmatist and preferred to make full use of the remaining lesson time rather than to squander it lecturing Shinji or waiting for him to stutter out some kind of excuse – He was simply instructed to take his seat.

It probably helped that he was usually punctual and that the teachers generally had a more lenient approach to the EVA pilots.

This, however, didn't change that Shinji had no clue what the collections of letters lines and numbers on the blackboard were supposed to represent.

In order to soothe his conscience, he spent the next two lessons paying careful notice to class – that was, after all, another way to distract himself from his many worries.

Once the sound of salvation granted them sweet, sweet release from their last lesson for today, he chose to ask his friends for their notes on the first half of today's math lesson

\- He wasn't sure if he'd be able to make sense of them even so, but he figured that it was worth a try, especially given his current need to get his slipping grades back under control.

 

After reaching the decision to borrow Nagato's notes (As he had the greatest propensity for paying attention in class and the nicest handwriting, to boot) he hastily went about copying the parts marked with today's date into his own collection of notes as he was quite uncomfortable with making Nagato wait for him.

Once he was done stuffing his belongings into his bag, he rushed off to return his friend's notes.

Said friend awaited him on the schoolyard, where he was casually conversing with Kensuke and Touji.

“Oh, hi Shinji! There you are!” the latter greeted, waving eagerly as soon as he'd spotted the younger boy.

“Uhm... Nagato. Here are your notes. I'm sorry for making you wait.”

“Don't worry about it.” the younger Mitsurugi replied. “That's what friends are for.”

“We made sure that he didn't get bored while waiting.” Touji assured him.

“We were just telling him how we met you back in the day.” Kensuke added.

“Yes, they were.” Nagato confirmed with a tentative but friendly smile. “It was quite a story.”

 

“You said it...” Touji admitted. “If someone had told me back then that Shinji and I would ever be best friends, I'd have thought they were nuts. What can I say? First impressions can be deceiving. In a way, the same was true for you. Don't get me wrong, but when you were first transferred, I thought you were some snobbish teacher's pet type of guy, like the sort who thinks they're too good to talk to us lowly mortals, but, you probably just weren't sure how to approach us. Now that I know you better, you've turned out to be a pretty considerate guy.

Or look at Kensuke here: At first glance, he looks like a big nerd. Well, actually, he **IS** a big nerd, but he's not one of those misanthropic wannabe hermits who want to marry a video game character and don't care about other people's feelings. He's actually a pretty reasonable person... or well, at least as long as there's no giant monsters or vintage battleships around.”

“Hey! It's not exactly a challenge be more reasonable than you!” Kensuke countered. “Unlike you, I happen to be an only child, I had to entertain myself with _something_. I can't just get on my little sister's nerves whenever I'm bored. Besides, one shouldn't throw stones in a house of glass. If I didn't know better, I could even confuse you with one of those empty headed braggadocious jocks. ” he joked.

“Well, if some asshole picks on my sister and tells them she'll get her big brother if they don't leaver alone, I'd better make sure that she's got some convincing arguments ready!” Touji explained, posing to highlight his biceps in order to leave no doubts what exactly he meant by that.

“Don't worry though.” Kensuke appended with a smile. “As you said, first impressions can be way off. You had me fooled right until you kept that unpleasant fourth grade from dipping my head into a toilet...”

“Then, this means...”

“Yep.” the bespectacled boy confirmed. “That would be the story of how Touji and I first met, all the way back in grade school. Also a bit of an adventure, even if it cannot compare to any kind of story with Giant Robots in it. ”

“Uh, strictly speaking, the EVAs aren't actually robots... but never mind. What are you all doing this afternoon?”

“We could plan for the school festival.” Nagato suggested.

But despite his earlier enthusiasm about the possibility of impressing Misato, Touji shook his head. “That's a good idea, but it's not gonna happen today. It's my father's day off and we promised my sister that we'd all come to visit her.”

“I'm all booked out as well.” Kensuke admitted. “I finally convinced my old man to take me to that Aeronautics Museum...”

“I see...” Shinji replied, endeavoring to conceal the surge of melancholy he felt at his friends' mentions of upcoming family fun time.

“Then we can decide later, we still have a few days before the festival and besides, I should probably catch up on my studies, I'm still somewhat behind, especially in physics...”

“Then how about you come to my place to study?” Nagato suggested unexpectedly. “Perhaps we could help each other out and do our homework together.”

Shinji felt like it would be somewhat shameful to accept this offer – In the face of the clear difference in their average grades, it was crystal clear that the younger Mitsurugi would end up doing most of the 'helping out'.

“I, uhm, I wouldn't want to impose on you, I mean, you probably have to do plenty of studying yourself, and I wouldn't want to take up your time...”

“You're not a burden.” Nagato clarified firmly, standing up straight to make full use of the few centimeters by which he surpassed Shinji's height.

“Quite the opposite. I would be honered to welcome you. Actually, I- I've been meaning to invite you over for quite some time now. ”

“Really...?”

If that was the state of things, it would have been just as shameful to refuse him, so Shinji decided to go with the option that Nagato himself seemed to insist on.

Besides, he was unlikely to find the necessary peace and quiet to study at home as long as he shared that home with a still-angered Asuka.

“Alright! I'll just phone Misato-san, just so she knows that I'll be staying out late...”

“Okay then! Have fun you two!” Touji shouted out as he waved goodbye.

“I'll come up with some plan for the school festival by tomorrow, alright?” Kensuke promised as he, too, went on his way. “Have fun!”

“You too!” the younger Mitsurugi responded.

It was honestly a little astonishing. Perhaps, it was simply that he knew him better now, or that he felt safer expressing himself around them, or perhaps he had honestly changed.

It still felt somewhat unfamiliar, to see the once ever so stiff and formal Nagato sporting a frolic smile and even allowing himself a minimal sort of wave with the upper part of his hand.

It was a nice feeling, to know that you'd helped someone.

 

_______________

  1. So, what revelations might be awaiting Shinji at the Mitsurugi Residence? Find out in Chapter 2.10: [The Hidden Depht]

  2. As you may have noticed, the next few chapters will involve some content from the tie-in game “The Second Impression”. I haven't exactly played it but I've seen some walkthroughs. For those who don't know it, it's a lot like “Girlfriend of Steel” except somewhat closer to the tone of the original and the great, great advantage that there is a Rei option. As you may have noted I've tried to incorporate content from most of the different routes along with some original material.




 

 


	29. 10: [The Hidden Depht]

**10: [The Hidden Depht]**

_Don't taint this ground_

_With the color of the past_

_Are the sounds in bloom with you_

_Cause you seem like_

_An orchard of mines_

_Just take one step at a time  
_

**_[…]_ ** _  
_

_I say it to be proud_

_Won't have my life turn upside down_

_Says the man with some_

_With some gold forged plan_

_Of life so incomplete_

_Like weights strapped around my feet_

_Tread careful one step at a time  
_

_And you seem_

_To break like time_

_So fragile on the inside_

_You climb these grapevines_

_Would you look now_

_Unto this pit of me on the ground_

_And you wander through these_

_To climb these grapevines  
_

_-Globus, 'Orchard of Mines'_

* * *

It would be Shinji's first visit to the Mitsurugi Residence.

He'd visited Touji's and Kensuke's places once or twice before, though the two clearly preferred to meet if not somewhere in town, then at Shinji's place, lest they miss any potential chance to sneak a glance at Misato – Even if that also meant a higher chance of running into Asuka as of late.

Nagato, by contrast, had only recently become what one might consider a full member of their group and hadn't been there for the initial series of turbulent events that had led them to each other. Insofar, this invitation was probably a good thing, as well as an interesting opportunity for Shinji to get to know him a little better.

Misato had immediately agreed as she always welcomed the sight of the pilots maintaining their social contacts and taking the time to do regular innocent kid's stuff. Since Shinji had brought his phone and Misato could easily find out the Mitsurugis' adress and phone number with a single call to headquarters, there should be no problems in case they needed to contact him because of an emergency.

In comparison, the conversations the two had led on their way to Nagato's appartment had almost been more of a challenge, as the Third Child had never been particularly interested in politics and the like – He already had enough things to worry about without including the big, immovable processes that were leading the world on a tightrope dance at the edge of destruction.

Shinji's knowledge in that regard was limited to what he might occasionally pick up on TV, radio or internet, and his opinion of most controversial topics was rather wishy-washy.

For obvious reasons, such discussions were seldom started when the four of the were all in one place, but Nagato seemed to have expected that he would be the type to keep informed about these serious topics, or at least, that he would welcome a chance to discuss them in a setting where it wouldn't bother anyone else.

Shinji just kept nodding and hoped that his new friends wouldn't notice that he was relatively clueless. If he was somehow disappointed, he didn't show it.

Not that this meant much – If anything, it was yet another testament to the older boy's superior patience whose stoic calm was at times enough to look beyond even Asuka's constant provocations.

His statements about the complexities of the greater, wider world that Shinji had always seen as a big, confusing and hostile place one could easily get lost in were somber statements of detailed reasoning yet dispassionate nature as well as mildly concerned contemplations far disparate from the curses and complaints often associated with debates.

Shinji chose to regard this as a positive trait of Nagato's, though he could imagine that Asuka would have chided him, too, for not expressing himself in a more energetic or dicisive manner... though if she had in fact been here, she probably would have invested her limited time into the mocking of Shinji's limited intellect.

By the time the boys reached their destinations, his replies had only exceeded the domain of nods one-liners a few times.

The Mitsurugis lived in an apartment complex that was not ostentatious, but certainly on the side of greater comforts, displaying an upscale, modern design on both interior and exterior.

Judging by the sheer number of doorbells with blank tabs beside them, the building appeared to be mostly vacated, much like many others inside Tokyo-3, including the one Shinji himself lived in, though unlike the Katsuragi household, Nagatos family appeared to have at least a few neighbors: Every three or two stories, one of the three to four apartments per floor would be listed as occupied, though this amounted to only six in total.

The two boys' path led them into a spacey elevator with a shiny black floor of black marble and through it, to the sixth floor, which was located at about half the building's height.

The buttons in the elevator suggested that the building contained both an underground parking and a basement complex, from which individual rooms or spaces could be rented alongside the apartments themselves.

Like Shinji's own place, the Mitsurugi residence had an automatic metal sliding door – all it took for it to open was for Nagato to pull a keycard through a slit in the wall.

"Is this really okay?" Shinji asked hesitantly, still unsure whether he should actually follow its resident inside. He wasn't sure if the obligations and significances of crossing this threshold were all clear to him.

Nagato seemed surprised about the question, though he was able to downplay if not completely conceal this, along with a certain sense of doubt lacing his measured features.

Beckoning him with a nod and as gesture, Nagato motioned for Shinji to enter first.

The apartment was nicely furnished, but not exceptionally large. Beyond a small wardrobe which offered a space to take of coats and shoes, they were met with an open area that combined the facilities of a kitchen, living room and dining room, from which three doors branched off, all of them neatly labeled with small, hand-carved wooden signs: One of them, in the shape of a tiny bath tub, was simply labeled 'Bath', the sign on the next door resembled a motor bike and, judging by its written tag('World's Best Dad'), must have been a gift, and the last contrasted the others by being a simple rectangular plate of stainless steel, with the words 'NAGATO'S ROOM' engraved in capital letters, which suggested that even though Mitsurugi senior seemed nearly as eccentric as Misato, he had a much better feeling for what boys their age might find embarrassing.

And his son's gratitude did not merely extent to gifting him grandmotherly wooden sign, which, despite what the NERV employee's rebellious hair length seemed to suggest, were something like his great weakness, and as such omnipresent in his kitchen despite the lack of feminine figures in his household - "Pots", "Plates", "Cutlery", every drawer had its own little wooden sign, often carved into a matching shape.

There were coffee mugs as well ('No #1 Dad') which he'd then go on to use to show the world just how proud he was of his junior, for example right now, as he sat on his desk, sorting through a plethora of files and reports full of numbers and diagrams.

Though he seemed to have been absentmindedly sipping at his coffee as he worked, Mitsurugi Minoru immediately put down his mug as he heard the boys' steps drawing nearer.

"Oh, Nagato! Welcome home!" he greeted with a broad, jovial grin. "And... oh, did you bring a visitor?" he seemed surprised about this.

"We wanted to work on our studies. Is it bad today?"

Smiling, the older man shook his head.

"Of course not! I keep telling you that you could bring some friends home with you. And you're helping out another student, too. That's practically something for me to brag about. But isn't this our Third Child?"

"Uh...yes..." Shinji confirmed.

The long-haired man got up from his seat and eagerly shook the EVA pilot's hand. "I'm honored to welcome you, Ikari-kun. Make yourself at home!

We'me met a couple of time at headquarters. My name is Mitsurugi Minoru."

"Nice to meet you, Mitsurugi time."

"Nice to meet you, too!"

Throughout the whole greeting, Shinji's thoughts were not quite in the present, and he hoped that it hadn't shown. It was just the sheer casual banality with which this man had conversationally announced how he was going to 'brag' about his son as if it was the most normal thing in the world that had been deeply shocking to him, his sudden awareness that he couldn't even imagine this, to just... come home one day and incidentally find his father sitting at a table there. The older Mitsurugi was wearing a partially buttoned down white shirt and light skinny jeans that seemed to take a few years off his face. He made an all different impression compared to when he'd don his labcoat and his NERV uniform, way more insouciant and natural, more like a man that was only a few years' Misato's senior than an eccentric researcher or overly enthusiastic family man.

Shinji couldn't recall the last time he'd seen his own father in anything other than his NERV uniform. Though he was ostensibly right there in the room with the Mitsurugis, Shinji felt as if he were on some distant star, looking through a telescope to observe a distant, unfamiliar Sphere at the other end of the universe.

"Well then, good look with your studies, you busy bees~" Mitsurugi noted, patting his son's shoulder in acknowledgment.

Shinji didn't think that he had ever received a single affectionate touch for as long as he could recall... no pats on the shoulder, no hugs,  _nothing_...

He had, after all, been raised not by a family member with whom there would have been a certain intrinsic familiarity, but by a teacher, who was a trained professional doing his job for a salary. In this setting, any touch would have been improper.

Or no, that was no longer quite right.

Not since his arrival in Tokyo-3.

It may not have anything that happened on a regular basis, and most cases had involved embarrassing mishaps, but he could no longer claim in good faith that he did not know what human closeness felt like.

But still, compared to what most others took for granted, he knew laughably little of it.

* * *

Nagato's room was possessed of generous dimensions and numerous windows, all of which were, however, equipped with dark curtains that limited the influx of light which would otherwise have been very prominent during the daytime.

Apart from the occasional metallic surfaces, the furniture was kept if not black, then in dark colors, and the carpets continued this pattern.

The large bed and the desk, a black rolltop desk that could have passed for an antique were it not for its ample size, raised the suspicions that minimizing cost had not been a major deciding factor in their selection.

The numerous and diverse lamps draped in little groups on various free surfaces added a more personal touch.

What really attracted Shinji's gaze, though, was a grand pianoforte crafted from dark wood, stored away in a dark corner of the room as if to not draw attention to it.

"It belonged to my mother." Nagato explained, well aware of where his friend's gaze had strayed.

Shinji himself, feeling somewhat 'found out', went through some hesitation before gingerly speaking the question that had been on his mind to begin with: "...Do you play?"

That would be quite a thing, if they'd both secretly harbored an interest in classical music in all the time they had known each other, and were only finding out now.

But the bandaged boy spared him the embarrassment by shaking his head.

"Not really..." he admitted, not without a drop of melancholy in his voice.

"I tried to learn once, but, I'm not really suited to it. It's not like I'm not musical, but... When I was a small boy, it did not really hold my attention, I mean, a piano- back when I was a child, I used to think it was kind of old fashioned, I was more interested in learning something a little more modern... ironically, that was a keyboard for me. Almost the same, one might think, but the differences are there. Or perhaps, I just wasn't rigorous enough with the practice. As a small boy, I didn't fully understand that I wouldn't see my mother again, and now that I'm older, I'm all the more aware that I barely knew her. I thought that, if I started playing, I could meet her somehow, but in the end-

Excuse me. You probably don't wish to hear this. This isn't what you came for, after all. I'm truly sorry for the outburst..."

Looking rather self-conscious for a moment, Nagato reached into the breast pocket of his shirt to retrieve his reading glasses and place them onto his nose.

"We should probably start..."

But those last words didn't quite make it into Shinji's consciousness. Something else had captivated his attention, a commonality, a flaw of his own person which, once recognized in another person and seen from the outside, seemed only human and a feeling he'd felt very alone with up to this day.

"It's allright."

"Hm?"

"...it's not  _that_  old-fashioned, I mean, plenty of modern music has pianos in it, they never really went out of fashion..." The Third Child attempted a smile. "Just look at me! I play the  _Cello_."

"...is that so?"

It was true that he hadn't made this fact known to very many people. He didn't want to draw attention or rouse expectations he would be unable to live up to.

"Don't think much of it, I'm terrible. My old teacher kept saying that I'd inherited my mother's talent, but I'm pretty sure he only said that so I wouldn't be disappointed. It's not like I need someone to tell me to notice that I'm no good...

He used to be my mother's music teacher, back when he was younger. From what I've heard, she was a real prodigy, and that's how he came in contact with our family in the first place. He would tell me about her sometimes, but for me, she always remained something like a large shadow..."

"Then..."

"Yeah, I'm the same as you. Except that I started early and still never got the hang of it..."

Behind his narrow reading glasses, Nagato's eyes were wide.

Was this the same expression Kensuke had received back at that campfire? It was strange to find himself in the reversed role, actually... changing things and doing others a service rather than just standing in everyone's way.

"So, uhm, weren't we going to get started?"

Nagato nodded with a subtle, yet clearly perceptible smile.

* * *

"So, what did you get for problem number two...?"

"I gave up on that one. I'm afraid I simply don't get it..."

"Then let me see... that's actually quite good."

"Those are only the basics."

"That's still the part where most people get stuck, if I may say so."

"Well, this, uhm..."

"So then. Let's continue..."

"This is the part where I got all confused... We're supposed to use the one formula if it's negative and the other one if the result is positive, but haven't got either of them memorized..."

"They'll probably be supplied on the test paper anyway. It's not as hard as it looks as long as you can remember the basic procedure. You just have to use an inequation to calculate the values for which the function becomes negative or positive... wait, I'll show you..."

"Maybe like this...?"

"Exactly. See? You almost worked it out by yourself. You shouldn't give up so quickly."

* * *

"Why do you keep asking me if you can do it this well?"

"I... wasn't sure, and besides, I'm not exactly doing it  _well_..."

"Almost all of this is right, though, apart from some little slips of attention here and there, and those are probably just nerves."

"That's only because you explained it to me, Nagato..."

The younger Mitsurugi couldn't help but chuckle. "Shinji, there's  _no one_ who can learn this sort of thing without having it explained to them first. There's no shame in asking questions."

"I just don't want to bother anyone else, or, look like an idiot asking stupid questions..."

"Shinji, the teachers are  _paid_  to answer 'stupid questions'. They'll probably be glad to see that someone is interested in their lessons for a change. It's actually remarkable that you can do this just with a little explanation. You've got a good head on your shoulders, you just have to be more confident."

* * *

"Hello, you hardworking boys!"

The two of them had just taken care of math, physics, literature and their homework when the door opened to reveal Nagato's father.

"Fancy a little brainfood?"

"Uh, I... I really don't want to impose on you..." Shinji answered cautiously. His doubts regarding his own father and the mild intimidation he felt in regards to the older Mitsurugi's outgoing nature further complicated the usual tightrope dance between coming off as either greedy or ungrateful.

"No need to play it humble! The pizzas are already on their way. I took the liberty of ordering you a salami pizza since most people generally like that flavor. Is that alright for you?"

"Yes, Thank you very much."

"Don't worry about it! After all, every single person in this town owes you their lives several times over. The least I can do is buy you dinner."

His following laughter matched his long hair and informal manner of expression.

"Besides, any friend of Nagato's is a friend of mine. You can go ahead and let me serve you something to drink, the table is already set and if the phone operator is to be believed, the pizza should be here any moment!

Contrary to popular belief, I think that even education should be enjoyed in moderation."

Nagato himself simply smiled. "Thanks, Dad. We're coming right away, just let me finish reading this paragraph."

In the meantime, Shinji caught himself nearly putting away his pens though he had intended to continue working after the break – Even though the man of the house didn't seem like the sort to be overly fussy about correct procedure, Shinji hadn't really had a chance to embarrass himself in front of his friends' parents before – by the looks of it, the fathers of Touji and Kensuke were both very busy men of whom he'd only caught fleeting glimpses so far, and though he was already familiar with Rei's guardian, he barely 'counted' as he doubled as Shinji's own father.

So far, the elder Mitsurugi seemed to have a positive opinion of him, but that could probably be ascribed to his being an EVA pilot.

One way or another, they found the table already set when they left Nagato's room – Shinji had stood in wait for his friend to finish reading.

As for the older man, he asked them what drinks they might want and swiftly served them – Shinji gathered from his casual and well-prepared actions here that he must have taken over the household duties for lack of a spouse.

Shinji himself decided on some orange juice, whereas Nagato contented himself with a glass of mineral water while his father opted for a cold glass of lemon-flavored beer.

No sooner than everyone had moved over to their seats, the doorbell rang.

"That would be the Pizza." the long-haired man concluded. "Wait I sec, I'm just gonna-"

But Nagato had already risen to his feet before anyone else got the opportunity to do so.

For a split second, Shinji had been considering to go himself lest he come off as a lazy mooch, but his doubts as to whether he would find his way back had kept him seated.

"I'm going. I'll be right back."

And before Shinji even had the time to blink, the younger Mitsurugi had already departed towards their Pizza, which meant that Shinji was now alone with the elder.

"Don't forget to take the cash with you, Nagato!" he called after his son – before turning straight towards Shinji. "And as for you, there's really no need to be so shy."

"Uh... thanks... anyways." Shinji answered for lack of anything better to say.

"Not all! I should be the one thanking you, without question! You've done a lot for us."

"That was just because I  _had_  to, it's not exactly  _my_  achievement..."

"I don't mean your piloting. At least, not that alone."

Shinji eyed him dumbfoundedly.

If it wasn't this, then  _what?_ What else had he ever done that would be worthy of notice?

"I've got my very own reasons of being thankful to you, boy. As you probably noticed, my dear junior is a bit... reserved. It didn't help that he's been bullied over his good grades on some of his old schools. Children can be cruel sometimes... And because of my work concerning the project, we had to move a lot, sometimes to very remote areas, so he never really learned how to blend in with others his age. Even at home he's all alone, since I'm so busy. He's been very lonely at times, and this is the first time in years that he's ever brought a friend home with him.

He's told me everything about you and the other two, and how you went out of your way to include him. I owe you one for that."

Shinji... didn't know what to say.

"Did I embarrass you? I'm sorry. I can imagine that Commander Ikari would have made sure to drum the humility into you... if the way he acts at work has anything in common with what he's like at home, he must be a pretty strict father, right?"

If only. That would at least imply that his Father had some concern about Shinji's manners and upbringing.

How would Shinji even  _know_  what he acted like in private?

Perhaps he was strict with Rei – but if he was, it surely wasn't in your usual 'go and clean up your room!' kind of way.

In any case, as far as Shinji himself was concerned, it would seem that his father couldn't care less about what he did or  _didn't_  do.

"No, I don't think he is."

"Well! That's not  _that_ surprising either. It's not like my own home life is anything like people probably imagine it... I still wonder what it is that I did wrong – and try as I might, in the end I've never been able to replace Nagato's mother. I was very hurt by her death myself and maybe... maybe I was too absorbed with my own grief to help Nagato deal with his – even though he was the one who found her, that day, and at such a young age, too...

– And with my work, even  _I_ wasn't even there for him as much as I  _could_  have been.

You know, when my wife first died, I considered sending him off to a boarding school, where he'd be looked after by qualified people, and be around other gifted children on his own level.

Sometimes, I wonder if I didn't make the wrong decision back then..."

"No way!"

Shinji was just as surprised about the intensity of his reaction as the man sitting across him. For once, the long-repressed feelings inside of him refused to be restrained.

Before the the NERV researcher had revealed this train of thought, he'd always pictured the Mitsurugis as being the exact opposite of his own family, a diametric counterpart, but now...

Could it be...?

"There's no way that could be better, Mitsurugi-san...! I mean... Don't you see how  _important_  you are to Nagato? He has nothing but praise for you!

It's because of you that his life isn't...  _worse_... than it is..."

"It's okay kid! Thanks. I suppose you're right..."

Nagato's father pointed an understanding glance at the many gifts that decorated the room.

"By the way, now that we're talking of fathers and the like... I don't suppose you could put in a good word for me with your old man?" he asked with a grin, perhaps in an attempt to lighten the mood of the conversation before Nagato could return and inquire about their long faces. "Just casually mention what a nice and hospitable guy old Mitsurugi is when you get home, okay? I could always use a raise or a better post."

"I'm afraid you're asking the wrong person for that, Mitsurugi-san..."

"What do you mean?"

Normally, Shinji peferred avoid this particular subject, but this near perfect counterexample threw as much fuel into the fires of his anger and disappointment as it took to loosen his tongue: "My father and I... aren't speaking with each other. We barely have anything to do with each other at all! When I 'get home', I will be heading to Misato's place.  _That's_ where I've been living, ever since I arrived in Neo Tokyo 3. – Ah, 'Misato' is Captain Katsuragi's first name. In any case, I'm staying with  _her_.

The person you're asking me to talk to is basically my superior, and nothing else!"

The loathing in his words was quiet and subdued, but audible nonetheless.

"That is..."

One could imagine that the older Mitsurugi had some variety of thoughts and feelings about this – for him, this must have been an abrupt encounter with the path not taken. But before he found the time to gather his words, the door swung open to reveal his son with three cardboad boxes full of pizza in tow, inadvertently scattering the heavy, gloomy mood that had started looming over the room as he moved in to deposit them on the table, and as if by some unspoken agreement, the topic of conversation shifted to trivial small talk such as the current subjects being covered at their school and the terror of the second child, and everyone proceeded to have a good time, which didn't change that some things remaised unsaid, as, perhaps, they should.

* * *

"So, I'd say that's enough for today." announced Nagato after he'd allowed himself to flop down on his bed in exhaustion. "It's getting rather late, too, we wouldn't want Katsuragi-san to get worried."

"I guess you're right..." Shinji agreed, already in the careful process of putting his things back into his schoolbag. "Thanks for everything again."

"Don't worry about it. If you ever have problems with your schoolwork again, you can always ask me for help."

"...Thanks. I'll be going then-"

"Wait a bit!"

Nagato sat back up and pulled something out of a drawer in his nightstand. "I've got something for you here."

"What do you mean?"

"Let's call it a token of friendship. I've been wanting to give it to you for some time now, but I suppose I chickened out so far... I've noticed how you always carry that old-fashioned cassette player with you, and I guess it made me think of something you might enjoy."

In his hands, the boy with the bandaged head held a collection of dusty old cassettes which he eagerly presented to the Third Child.

"They used to belong to my father. He was a bit of a rebel back in his youth, and I suppose you can still tell by his hair. I asked him and he said you could have it, he's got all of this as MP3s anyways."

"I – can't accept this..."

"I  _insist_  on it."

"What kind of music is this, anyways?"

"Mostly Grunge and Nu Metal, I think. Nirvana, Peal Jam, Tool, Linkin Park, that type of thing. My father tried to spark my enthusiasm, but I'm afraid this was never really my style, but, I can imagine that  _you_ 'd like it. I'm sorry if you already have all of these..."

Shinji wondered where Nagato had gotten that impression of him.

To be honest, the repertoire of what he kept blasting his ears with mostly included ordinary pop songs, the sort of which the radio played every day. It was his own selection thereof, chosen from the more downbeat corners and interspersed with the occasional piece of classical music, but he'd always shied away from everything that was considered hard loud or rebellious. He'd have worried what his old teacher would think of it.

As for the bands and artists Nagato had just listed, he was only familiar with the names, in part because of the older, wealthy people that had occasionally frequented his teacher's place and their complains about the 'nihilistic' and 'anarchist' media that was supposedly spoiling today youth.

"Don't take this the wrong way, but, what makes you think I would like this?"

It wasn't a complaint but a sincere question, an inquiry into how he was being perceived – nonetheless, the reply seemed to disarm Nagato for a moment, but then, his expression changed into a melancholy smile.

"You just seemed the type, I guess. Like someone with a sullen, rebellious streak...

You know when I first saw you, my first impression was that you were someone like me. Someone who's had to bury certain dreams a long time ago, a deeply sad and resigned person..."

It was hard to believe that Nagato would describe himself as such with a smile. It was painful to look at him, and Shinji wondered if Misato had felt the same looking at  _him_  when they first met. Somehow, this seemed to make her behavior back in the day more comprehensible.

"But when I got to know you better, I came to realize that we're more different than I thought. You probably  _think_  that you  _should_  have given up, but you haven't.

I think somewhere deep down, you've got a lot of anger going on... or, well, that was just my impression, and so I thought that maybe some angry music would be something you'd like-"

It surprised Shinji that someone would see him this way – it didn't fit his own image of himself and made him wonder where Nagato could be coming from.

"You know, one thing that we  _do_  have in common is that we can be somewhat reluctant around others, and how we try to be as polite as possible out worry that we could be doing something wrong..."

"I know... It's just like Shikinami says, I'm a wuss..."

"I used to think the same of myself when I was younger... and you know what my father told me? 'Nagato, stop talking nonsense. You're just a nice person and you don't need to be ashamed of that.'"

Shinji wished that  _he'd_ have someone who could have told him such things.

"Whether it's wanting to be liked by others, or to avoid fights, those are both perfectly normal. It's a natural part of living with others as part of a group.

Actually, it couldn't hurt Miss Shikinami to follow your example and act a little more agreeably. On the other hand, I've made the experience that you can't really be happy if you're  _always_  playing some part. At least in the quiet of your room, with your music and your computers and so on, or whatever your hobby is, you should be able to be your true self."

"Is that so? I don't know, especially about that 'true self' part – just because it's 'true' doesn't mean that it's always good. For all you know, my 'true self' could be the worst person imaginable!"

"Are you afraid to find out?" Nagato replied. "Don't worry. I'm positive that your true self has to be an impressive, interesting person. Maybe a bit more intense than you're comfortable being right now, but- I'm sure you're a great person."

"And how could you possibly know that?"

"Because you do great things. That's the only way you can ever know  _any_  person – by their actions."

If only...

"I... I'll give the cassettes a listen. " the Third Child surrendered, packing them into his bag. "Thanks, Nagato. It was an interesting experience to come here... I think. Really, thanks."

Nagato sighed in a fond manner. "How many more times, it's me who should be thanking you. You're always welcome here. Should I ask my father to drive you home?"

"No thanks, I'll manage. ...but, Nagato, there  _is_  one thing I've been wondering..."

By the time Shinji spoke those last sentences, he was already standing in the doorway.

"What is it? Ask away."

Shinji believed that they should now be sufficiently acquainted for this not to come off as nosey.

"Please don't think anything strange about this, I was really just wondering, but... wha happened to you?"

Nagato took a moment to realize what he was referring to.

"Ah, you mean the bandage? That happened some time before we moved here, a couple of months ago. My father brought me with him to the lab to watch his big experiment and on this day of all days, something went wrong. There was an explosion, and I barely made it out. Some people even died... and well, I guess this kind of injury takes a good while to heal."

* * *

Walking home in the fading dusk, Shinji couldn't help but incredulously look at his hands as he opened and closed them, sometimes slower, sometimes faster.

He barely recognized himself in the person Nagato and his father had been speaking about.

Could he really make this sort of difference?

There were many people whom he wanted to help, many whom he wanted to protect, but the whole thing sounded preposterous... The great hero that everyone else seemed to be talking about barely  _resembled_  him. It was all one big misunderstanding, owed solely to his being an EVA pilot.

If anyone had gotten it right at all, it was probably Asuka – He was a weakling who couldn't even stand up for the things he cared about.

All his good intentions were utterly worthless if he couldn't enact them in reality.

Everyone had all those huge expectations of him, and the day his streak of beginner's luck ran out, he'd be forced to thoroughly disappoint them – He'd practically had it prophecied to him, not that he needed a prophecy to know it. If Asuka didn't tell him, then the next available mirror would.

He'd always been deeply afraid that people would hate him, but now, he was beginning to realize that being unjustly admired might be more terrifying than being justly hated.

Everything was so vague and uncertain...

* * *

When he arrived back home, he found the table covered instant meal packages. In his Absence, Misato must have 'volunteered' to provide Asuka & PenPen with something resembling Dinner and especially the former assured him that she was none too happy about that, as if his general existence wasn't annoying enough.

Was she seriously still upset about what happened this morning?

She usually burned herself out faster than that, or maybe that confrontation had been the last straw?

He'd never understand her...

One way or another, his own path led him straight back to him room, where he intended to listen to some Nagato's cassettes before going to sleep.

He put the first one into the player, plugged the headphones into his ears, leaned back and pressed the 'Play'-button... and then, it was as if he'd finally found the words to describe the feelings that he'd been harboring for a long time, but never found the words to express, and he knew that he wasn't the only one with these doubts, or with these feelings.

* * *

As soon as this night has embraced him, its mysterious ways send him back on his journey.

Loose and silent amid the contracting darkness, unsure of what to become, he found himself in the black depths of an ocean, where no light shone.

There was nothing but deathly silence, and both the bottom and the surface were far beyond his sight – and that's exactly why he had closed his eyes a long, long time ago.

There was nothing to see, nothing to hear, nothing to do.

There was nothing but the trickling sands of time and the process by which he slowly adapted to the cold of his surroundings.

It was no wide, open darkness, but a small, enclosed one, and he had no reason to suspect that anyone would ever find him here

\- So why did it take little more than a tiny glittering, a premonition of brightness to rouse him from his curled up position in the middle of the vast nothingness and lead him to strive toward the source of the light, open wide, rising like helium, higher and higher, toward the light and the gold and the many wonders he'd never known before, surrendering to the sun like a moth to a lamp although he knew that he'd only get burned?

The reflection he saw as he neared the surface wasn't anything he would recognize, but he didn't get to examine it in detail before it was extinguished, either through himself breaking through the surface, or the sound of his alarm clock...

* * *

The day before, he'd set his alarm particularly early; He'd considered to meet Nagato at his doorstep, in part to give back what he had received, but also for a chance to be alone with him. He wanted a silent minute to confirm to Nagato that he'd chosen exactly the right gift and appreciate a quiet moment together in ways that the rest of their little group wouldn't.

Th other two were indispensable for purging the air between them of the melancholy it sometimes acquired; It was just that for each of the three, there were a couple of things that could only be discussed under four eyes.

Admittedly, another part of Shinji's motive was to evade the still-seething Asuka. The more time passed without resolving their differences, the more he feared that he may have driven her off for good.

Nagato was conceivably flattered by the gratitude but true to himself he was somewhat reluctant in expressing it.

Again, the topic of discussion went over Shinji's head, but this time, he managed to work up the courage to ask follow-up questions, resulting in the slightly older boy apologizing profusely and insisting that he hadn't meant to come off as arrogant. Nagato had himself considered to explain the topic, but he'd been afraid that he'd sound even  _more_  like a know-it-all if he did this. He wasn't really familiar with what most othes would regard as 'normal' topics.

Shinji merely replied that it wasn't Nagato's fault if  _he_  didn't understand it and that there was no reason to apologize.

No reason to apologize, hm? Was it that what Asuka had meant back then? Then again, it had bee a whole different thing in a whole other context and it wasn't like he understood any of this...

Nagato spoke then with sudden severity: "But there is  _one_  thing that I can't stop wondering, Shinji... Yesterday, my thoughts where in a whole different place, but that's precisely why I can't help but notice it today. You mentioned that you lost your mother, just as I did."

"Uhm, yes..."

"And you know how Touji always tells us how his father is always busy and how there's no one but him to look after his sister... and, remember that time we were at Kensuke's place? There was no room in that apartment for a mother.

And the Second Child lives with Katsuragi-san, just like yourself, so we can probably assume that she's an orphan as well. I've never really thought about it, after Second Impact, it's not that unusual, but now that you, too...

Tell me, Shinji, what of Ayanami? Are her parents still alive?"

Shinji didn't understand what Nagato meant, but he had a  _feeling_ , a half-conscious observation he'd never dared to pursue any further.

"She lives on her own, and her legal guardian is- he's the Commander of NERV."

"As I thought." Nagato's expression darkened, and he turned to look directly into Shinji's eyes.

"Do you know of anyone in our class whose biological mother is still alive?"

No, he didn't.

Incapable of denying the self-evident truth that shone at him from all possible angles, Shini gaped at his friend.

"What... is the meaning of this?"

"I don't know. And hearing that you don't know either worries me even more."

When he saw the panic spreading through the EVA pilot's face, he felt duty-bound to add something more to that: "From a sober perspective, all that means is that there must be some connection between our class and the project, beyond just you three being part of it. That explains what Kensuke told us, about how this class got so few new students when the city's population was still growing, and why we're the only ones to get new students as everyone else keeps fleeing to the countryside. And since I was placed in this class myself, that would mean that whatever this means also concerns my own person.

But ultimately, the upshot of this is just that our lives and our safety depend on you and the other pilots. In that sense, this is nothing new."

Great. Another piece of disconcerting knowledge that he couldn't discuss with anyone.

First the visions inside his EVA, those strage dreams, 'The World is Wrong' and now this...

"Why... why of all people do I have to know all those terrible things I can't talk to anyone about!"

"Perhaps, so you can use that knowledge to save us all?"

That must have been Ichijou Yui's thoughts as well,and the reason why she'd approached him in the first place. He was trying to 'use' this knowledge but, that meant that it all depended on  _him_.

On him, who couldn't stop earning Asuka's wrath when it was her heart he was after, on him, who couldn't manage to become a support for Ayanami, on him, whom even his own father couldn't stand the sight of...

* * *

That Asuka didn't spare him one glance upon his arrival in the classroom was barely surprising. It was Rei's absence that shook him with a small jolt of fright when he first noticed it – what if yesterday's experiment had gone wrong after all?

No, in that case, Misato would have told him, if not yesterday evening, then this morning. She was absent all the time, it was barely anything special for her, not that this was a reason not to be worried, especially given all those pills she tended to keep on top of her fridge...

Absorbed in his brooding, Shinji barely noticed the lessons rushing by, and since he didn't feel like explaining his sour mood to his friends, he decided to depart toward the school library before the sound of the bell had time to dissipate in full.

He'd never really been there, but he knew that it existed, and he knew what door supposedly lead to it – His usual spot on the school roof would have been too obvious, and libraries could, almost per definition, be reasonably expected to be quiet, secluded places.

The greatest advantage of a silent place associated with Nerds and loners was undoubtedly that the chance of running into Asuka there was probably below zero; If she were to find and mock him on top of everything else, it would be more than he'd be able to take right now.

But even if he was correct in his assumption that Asuka would treat this sort of place like the Bermuda triangle and that his friends would look for him on the roof, he neglected to consider that he couldn't possibly be the only one among hundreds of teenaged students who was currently looking for a bit of piece and quiet, so that he allowed himself to sink into his thoughts beyond the degree that would be advisable if one wished to avoid collisions with one's fellow students.

Thus, Murphy's law struck again when a likewise distracted girl with a couple o books under her arms and another in front of her nose happened to be walking into his general direction: Baboom!

The literature immediately began its journey to the floor, where they scattered themselves openly before her feet.

Shinji instantly expected reproach and sought to apologize, but to his great surprise, whatever bookworm he'd nearly mowed down preempted him with her quiet, adorable voice, mumbling a hasty "...E-Excuse me!"

Feeling no less guilty, Shinji immediately followed up with an "A-Are you alright?"

Crap! Why did such things keep happening to him?

You'd think he was the clumsiest person in the galaxy...

Fortunately, the unfortunate girl immediately assured him that she was just fine, and immediately inquired how things were on his end.

"It's okay..." he answered, making a point to sound friendly.

And then, well, then she slightly turned her head to the side and surprised him with a beaming smile.

"Thank goodness..."

He was immediately taken with her.

It was the sort of simple, genuine smile that the beautiful and radiant ones of this world had long since forgotten, a gentle, unpretentious gesture not intended to demand a particular response.

But he thought that he'd seen her before somewhere, with that long, black hair, the beauty mark under her lips and the light grey eyes that shone even through her glasses.

Recognition began to trickle into Shinji's consciousness, but didn't fully arrive until she bent down to gather up her books. "I'm really, really sorry." she repeated, even thought it was  _him_  who had crashed into  _her._

"I should have been more careful..."

There! Now he remembered!

"You're..."

Yamagishi Mayumi, the girl who'd transferred in yesterday.

"Oh right, we're in the same class."

Aww.

That smile could melt him where he stood. He better get his gentleman act on, perhaps he could still salvage the blotched first impression from yesterday.

"I'm Ikari Shini." He bent down as well in order to look her in the face. "Do you want me to help you?"

"It's fine, it was my fault anyways..."

"Uh-Uh. You can't have been the only one who was spacing out..."

"I'm really,  _really_  sorry-"

"There's no need to apologize."

Now, Shinji intended to defuse the awkward situation by gathering up her books as fasr as possible, but unfortunately, Mayumi had the exact same idea, so that her fingers were reaching for the same book at the same time and as such, brushed against Shinji's.

Frightened by the foreign unfamiliar sensation of warmth, both pulled back their hands reflexively.

"I-I'm so sorry!" was all Mayumi could manage to say, avoiding his gaze in shame.

Shinji himself, alas, could not string any coherent words together: "Ehm... Er... Well..."

Quick, quick, something to talk about...!

"Uhm, were you going to borrow these books?"

Great, the dumbest question on Earth.

"Well, yes, I, I like books so that's why-" feeling that his presence was at least halfway tolerated due to her answer, Shinji took it upon himself to gather the remaining volumes. "...So that's why?" he repeated with interest as he handed her the books. It seemed like the simplest way to answer and to signal that he was paying attention to her and hey! She actually turned her face back in his direction, even if she kept her gaze lowered and her expression suggested that she found this whole situation deeply unpleasant.

"So nothing, really..." Intent on escaping the gaze of other humans at least for a moment, she was the first to rise to her feet, even though he follow her swiftly.

She used the split-seconds this afforded her to compose herself and put on a smile, lest he read something accusatory into her discomfort.

"Uhm, Thanks alot-"

"Don't mention it." Shinji answered with a placating smile that he hoped would relax her a little. He'd expected that it might not work, but Mayumi's actual reply was unlike anything he'd imagined or played out in his mind.

"Uhm, yesterday, at the pool... You were looking at me, weren't you?"

"Eh... Eh... Ehhhh!"

"I – Is fine, I really don't mind, uh..."

And well, with those words, she darted off like a startled hare, leaving him alone with his thoughts.

Great, so now she thought that he was some perverted peeing tom  _and_  a careless ruffian who runs into people. He should be ashamed.

By now, he was beginning to wonder whether there was some yet undiscovered law of nature that sharply increased the possibility of embarrassing accidents whenever he was in the vicinity of pretty girls... on the other hand, her reaction hadn't been as straightforward as a simple 'you pervert'.

Then again, it was hard to say what opinion she'd been meaning to state, given that she'd had some difficulty expressing herself.

It was strange...

All in all, this Mayumi person left him with the impression that she was fairly shy, and then there was all this apologizing, even though he was the one at fault.

Was it this what Asuka had meant?

The Events sparked chains of thought, but didn't really lead those to any firm conclusions, except perhaps that the first impression he'd had of this girl, the idea that she was  _like_  him somehow hadn't been completely wrong.

* * *

Mayumi didn't allow herself to move until she was certain that she'd heard the door slamming shut behind her.

Only then did she sink to her knees, wrap her arms around the pile of books she was carrying, and loudly bemoaned her own piteousness.

That boy... that 'popular kid' that neither looked nor acted like one... he must think that she meant to call him a pervert or something, which wasn't what she had wanted. This hadn't turned out the way she wanted it to, quite the opposite if anything, and on top of that, she'd embarrassed herself and, she'd run into him too.

Serves her right for daydreaming. All she really wanted was just- It was so hard to put into words. She shouldn't have tried in the first place.

It was just that Mayumi always hated to be looked at or even noticed by others – she feared their dismissive judgments and their condescending laughter, the fate that invariable awaited her... but when this boy, who was suppedly popular with the local girls, had chosen to look at  _her_  of all people back at the pool, it had been different, different from all the other times – for once, it was almost a delight to have been watched, to have been chosen among all the beauties around as if she wear someone special, even someone beautiful and desirable...

It was perhaps the first time in her life that she'd been the target of flattery, and she'd thought he should know that, but when she'd stood before him, she'd simply ran away without managing a single coherent sentence.

Now that she'd though, if only for a moment, that something could change, everything staid the same and she was all the more tired of it for it, tired of it all, tired of her paralyzing speechlessness, her ugliness, her incompetence and that constant discomfort that sapped her energy – today it was even worse that yesterday, to the point that she'd been sorely tempted to ask the teachers more a moment to go outside and catch some fresh air... she couldn't even think of the last time she  _hadn't_  felt awful.

But it was no use complaining, this awful day was about to continue, and she had to get a move on if she had any intention to do any more reading before the bell signalled the end of recess.

Holding on to one of the many bookshelves, she rose to her feet and looked around for the entrance to these still unfamiliar rooms... and then, all the books slid out of her hands and were scattered to the floor with a series of loud 'thuds.'

She felt a pain that made her wonder how it could exist in this world, almost as if someone had detonated a nuclear warhead in her stomach whose fiery mushroom cloud now burned like a newborn sun.

Memories spilled forth of long-denied, abominable occurrences and long-forgotten, ill-remembered times in which she'd found herself somewhere with no memory of how she got there and no explanation that she could have given in case of questioning adults, a buried chest of quiet, whispering voiced that assured her that she'd never be happy ever again, and that everything she had ever known was marked for destruction, doubting, questioning, accusing voices that had been nourished by her fears.

Her hands moved over her ignited center – what  _was_  this? What could it be? Where could that horrid pain possibly be coming from, what organs were supposed to be in that spot again?

Helplessly, she fell down on all fours.

She felt as if she were about to burst open like an overripe fruit, as if her innards were to spill out with nothing to hold them back... she was hot, she was nauseous, and everything around her seemed to be blurring together – She couldn't even seem to breathe, for some kind of hellish pressure seemed to be driving the air from her lungs as I it had transformed itself into a viscous liquid, or even frozen into sharp crystal spines that were now piercing her tissues from the inside.

She'd already begun to make her peace with the certainty that she would just die here and never know what hit her when the ordeal took a turn for the worse, exceeding even her wildest dreams and darkest fears.

There was this  _stirring_ , this gross, biological sensation in her innermost, an agonizing, dribbling contraction.

By the time she fully recognized what it was, her school uniform was thoroughly drenched in her own cold sweat: A heartbeat. It was a heartbeat, a foreign, thundering heartbeat that wasn't her own.

She knew that this could not be, but as absurd as it may have sounded, it was real, and every single of its was akin to being crucified and broken on the wheel a thousand times.

She wanted to scream, but she couldn't. Her mouth was wide open and her face contorted, but no sound would escape her lips, as if they had been muted by a remote control. The certainty that no one would come to her aid even though she was inside a school building, technically surrounded by hundreds of students felt like ice in her veins; she'd wanted to hide herself from view, and so hidden she was to remain as she tumbled to the floor and prayed for a quick end – it's not like she'd ever had anything to keep her in the first place.

"No more..." she whimpered, her pleas barely more than a strangled rasp escaping her throat. "

The pain was like an incandescent light that outshone anything else in her consciousness. Her flimsy excuse for willpower and such an absurd self-flagellating eho as her own were all too easily overwhelmed – Who was she? What was her name? Who or what was important to her? There was nothing in Mayumi's life that would have been worth holding on to in spite of this agony – her mind was blank, completely bleached out save for this soul-splitting pain and a plea that sweet death might take her, or that she might at least find release in the tender embrace of unconsciousness – there had got to be a point at which the pain would be too strong to be felt continuously -

But the entity whose infernal heartbeat hat taken possession of her was yet far from done with her and most certainly not contended with making her writhe in pain – The being had known her for a long, long time.

It had watched her grow up, and it still had plans for her, plans that required her to become a tool for the destruction of her beloved world.

Wait, beloved? No.

She had no real attachment to this world, nor to any of the people that dwelt within it – After all, none of them had shown themselves to be attached to  _her_ , at least not enough for her to refuse the sweet arms of temptation in their name, especially if they promised an end to her suffering as she lay smothered by the heavy crushing presence that came over her and demanded her soul, or rather, came to take it  _back._

Drunken with pain, she was incapable of resisting the alien being's commands, and whatever may have remained of Mayumi within her fleshy shell had long since begun to attribute all of this to a fever dream – or perhaps, the person called Mayumi Yamagishi had been the dream, the scattered memories o her life nothing but a convenient fantasy to offer respite from the truth – or, if she  _had_  existed, she was most certainly dead now, she  _had_  to be, it simply wasn't possible that she'd ust be able to stand up after all this as if nothing had happened, not without leaving her corpse strewn across a nearby corner, and she was almost certain that that's exactly what she would have seen if he were to turn around now – except she wouldn't dare, she was far too afraid to look bad, and that left her with nowhere to go but forward.

Onwards, march, march, just as the Angel of Illusion commanded it – First in a stagger, hem, increasingly with an almost frightening normalcy, she was sent into motion – how could it be that no one could even see how she was buring up on the inside?

…...CLOSER...

She kept on putting one foot in front of the other.

Her skin had acquired the coloration of fresh printing paper.

She knew that she'd arrived at the school with her bike, she'd certainly be much faster if she took it.

…...CLOSER...

What was she even doing?

She felt it right beneath he skin, the beast that was just about to awaken.

… **...CLOSER...**

* * *

Approaching Asuka was no easy feat.

This wasn't something Shinji had fully appreciated before she'd decided to give him the cold shoulder for a while – Even though he'd known her for quite a bit at this point, he'd never walked up to her seat during recess in order to talk to her – usually there would be very little need of that, as Asuka had never been too reluctant to come to  _him_ when she had something to say to him.

Perhaps it hadn't been such a good idea after all to avoid her this morning – it would have been far easier to confront her in the safety of their shared apartment with Misato there to serve as an arbiter, or, at least, one-on-one on their way to school than it was now that she was standing in a crowd of girls with Hikari at her side, eagerly trash-talking some random celebrity's allegedly 'slutty' clothing.

But it couldn't be helped – by now, he had given up hope that she'd eventually come around on her own.

"Uh, Shikinami-san, do you have a minute?" he asked reluctantly, calling into the crowd which promptly fell silent – once again, all eyes were directed towards him, and it occurred to him that he should have recognized this as as  _terrible_  idea.

It was to late to go back now though.

"What do you want?" she retorted immediacy, no less hostile than she had been this morning. "Have you come to ruin yet  _another_  day for me?"

As usual, she got straight to the point and straightened out her back as she spoke so she could look down at him from her full height.

"It's not like that..."

Gathering all the wits he could muster, he forced himself to look her in the eyes and spill the beans right away – for even if she didn't, she'd insist on extracting a satisfying answer from him.

"I... I wanted to apologize to you!"

"Apologize?" Crossing her arms in front of her chest, Asuka eyes him sourly.

Wasn't that exactly what she'd been telling him  _not_  to do?

Still, it was a marked improvement to see that dork make his way here and come speak to her in front of all these other girls, enough, perhaps, to justify listening to what he had to say.

* * *

"So..." he began soon after they had arrived on the school building's roof. "Are you still angry because of what happened yesterday morning?"

Asuka couldn't believe her ears. How much more obvious did she have to make things for him to finally get a clue? She was going out of her way to make it clear as it was.

"This is not about that  _stupid_  thing from yesterday! And even if it was, it's not like listening to you talking is going to change what happened. I don't need your useless dramatics!"

"I know!" Shinji countered. "I  _know_  I can't undo what happened, but I still want to apologize..."

What  _else_ could he do at this point? It wasn't like he could turn back time!

He was just trying to be nice and get along with her, which was more than what could be said about her.

"Save your breath!" Asuka spat, without even pausing to think. "I'd much rather prefer it if you acted like a  _real_ _man_ for a change."

"What does that even mean?!"

Before Asuka got around to explaining the difference between him and a 'real man' in gratuitous detail, the 'peace and quiet' of the school roof was interrupted by a shrill noise – or rather,  _two_  sources of such noises.

Immediately, the Children exchanged a knowing glance – the very fact that their phones were both ringing at the same time left little doubt as to what awaited them...

* * *

"Analysis complete!" reported Lt. Ibuki. "Pattern Blue confirmed. It's an Angel, and it's the exact same one we had on our sensors yesterday!"

Aoba forwarded the target's position to Misato – it had appeared in a rural area some distance outside of Tokyo-3.

"Understood. All hands to battle stations!"

"Aye Ma'am!" Hyuuga confirmed.

"What about the Angel's power? If it could move without being noticed, why didn't it sneak up to our doorstep? What reason could it have to manifest outside of the city?"

"Who knows..." Akagi speculated. "Perhaps it's a trap and it's waiting for us to attack."

"Well I'm sorry but I'd rather not wait and see what it does. What's Commander Ikari's thought on the matter?"

"He told us to proceed at your discretion." Hyuuga detailed.

"Alright! What's the status of the Evangelions?"

"EVA 00 has been on standby all along and is ready to go. Units One and Two are being brought online as we speak."

"And what about the pilots?" Misato inquired.

"They're already in their plugs and awaiting orders."

"Very well. Connect me to the children..- Shinji-kun? Asuka? Rei? Can you hear me?

The enemy's capabilities are still unknown but we have reason to suspect that it can somehow bypass our sensors. It wouldn't be the first time that we lost or only barely escaped a battle because the enemy displayed some unforeseen power that we weren't prepared for. That's why one or two of you are going to stay behind in case the vanguard is taken out faster than we can do something about it . Above all, we have to avoid a situation in which all three of you are put out of commission all at once. Are you following me so far?"

"Whaaaaat?" Asuka bristled. "So not all of us will participate in the fight?"

"That would depend on the strength of the enemy."

"And which of us gets to go first?"

Well. That, indeed, might be the million dollar question.

Rei had the lowest synch ratio and EVA 00 was still plagued by technical difficulties so they could forget sending her out on her own. The same was true for Asuka: Left to her own devices, she was sure to fall victim to her own recklessness, and sending out both girls together wasn't even worth considering. Of course, both of them had proven on various occasions that they could be expected to work with  _Shinji_ , even though it may have taken some prodding in Asuka's case... it might make sense to send out Shinji and Rei to keep the potential for squabbles as low as possible while reserving Asuka's considerable fighting power as an ace up their sleeves, but then again, one could never be cautious enough with those things.

"I think it may be best to send out Shinji in Unit One first of all." she finally decided. He was, after all, the most experienced in terms of actual combat and while he might be liable to lose his nerve, that was far less likely if he knew that reinforcements could be sent right away. And if something  _did_  go wrong, the girls would be able to bail him out.

"Unacceptable!" Asuka complained. "Why am  _I_ not being sent? Of all the pilots, I have the greatest chance to take it out by myself! The most dangerous parts should be  _my_  job, not that of those two little children!"

"That's  _exactly_  why you're staying behind." Misato explained. "In case something goes wrong, you'll have to be our secret weapon."

Asuka wasn't all that convinced. "Bah!"

And so it came to pass that Shinji was sent to face the enemy on his own, with only Unit One itself for company.

Armed with an oversized rifle, he spotted the creature behind a hill, observing as it spun around its axis in silence.

It's lack of overt attacks only served to further the Third Child's irritation – He knew that Asuka and Rei could be sent to his aid at a moment's notice if anything were to go wrong, but the antsy mammalian fear circuits of his brain would prefer it if he could see them.

It had been a while since his last Solo sortie, he felt reminded of his earlier deployments, in many of which he hadn't exactly splattered himself with glory – he supposed that being allowed back out here by himself could be seen as proof that he'd regained Misato's trust in full since his early blunders.

The angel itself was shaped like an oblong ellipsoid standing on its tip, with six insectoid legs that ended in tiny five-pronged claw-studded 'hands'. As Shinji had come to expect from the likes of it, the creature's main body was no less bizarre: Upon closer observation, the Angel's body consisted of several disks that appeared to be spinning around the same axis – that aside, there seemed to be nothing physically connecting them, and one could discern that their inner sides coruscated in different colors, forming a rainbow along the length of the creature. The disks of themselves were composed or at least covered in hair-like bristles, resembling the coat of an insect such as a bumblebee.

Shinji thought back to what Yui had told him, but it refused to make sense – She'd said something about a power outage, but as far as he could tell nothing of the sort had happened. She'd also spoken about Asuka hatching a plan, but now, she wasn't even here, though there was at least one part of her warning that was still applicable to the current situation: Her assurance that 'shooting should work for once'.

So, Shinji released the safety on his rifle and took aim... but at what?

The creature's structure was fairly straightforward, but it was the most crucial part: Where in the world was the core? He couldn't see it anywhere.

"Misato-san? Where do I shoot...?"

It was not Misato's, but Lt. Ibuki's voice that sounded from the intercom: "We can't locate the core. It must be further on the inside."

 _What_  inside, though? That thing was practically see-through.

"Perhaps it will be easier to find once we've shot some holes into it." the leader of the operations division suggested "Try the center and both poles."

"Roger."

Shooting was supposed to work for one, eh? He would have to take her voice for it. Resolute, he emptied a whole salvo into the being, generously filling its center with center with bullets while giving priority to its middle and its ends – if one considered what results a failure would imply, it couldn't hurt to make sure.

There were sparks and several booming impact sounds, so there could be no doubt that the projectiles had struck – he hadn't missed the angels, and the bullets hadn't just phased through it either... so why wasn't there the slightest sign of damage to be seen?

The angel didn't show the slightest dent, not even a stretch...

And it was no longer inactive, either. Leaning to the side as if it wanted to join the tips of its component cogs on its left, it prepared an attack that turned out to be a broad, wide-area laser beam in the shape of a cross.

Shinji barely managed to dodge, but the ground he'd just been standing on was now burned to ash. The being shot again, forming a sun-like halo of ash-crosses around it which Shinji only barely managed to evade – he'd never had the fastest of reflexes but the adrenaline, past experiences and the training he'd received since his arrival were beginning to prove effective.

Even so, his successful dodges were enough to for the angel to switch strategies – and odd wobble went through its shape, leading up to the central segment detaching from the fold of its disk-like members, speeding towards the still kneeling Evangelion like some kind of lethal frisbee.

Despite or perhaps because of the worried shouting clamoring from the control center, the Third Child managed to duck just in time – and more than that: While the violet giant's body had essentially been made to throw itself to the side to avoid the hostile disk, its young pilot had actually succeeded in catching it, grasping it firmly with Unit One's right hand – that didn't mean that its motion has stopped, quite the opposite, the object seemed to spin faster and faster even while held in the EVA's hand, likely in an effort to escape; The friction between the test type's palm and the alien body part it was grasping rapidly filled all involved surfaces with heat, and even sparks could be seen flying, and the angel's bristly surface painfully dug into the giant cyborg's hand – but Shinji seemed determined to end this and held on tight, pulling up his other arm in order to spray the disk with all remaining bullets in his weapon.

No effect – the recoil even pushed the beast's detached center from his grasp, allowing it to wriggle free of his grip and rip a portion of flesh out of the Evangelion's palm in the process.

The hand was still largely working, but it hurt like hell.

"It's no use...!" Misato concluded. "Try another weaon!"

Damnit. This was nothing like that Yui person had predicted it. He was truly on his own then, but the foaming panic that he could feel building up in the rushing of his veins was a distraction he couldn't afford right now.

* * *

"I need to go to him! I was mistaken about something important, and now he's got wrong information! He's  _counting_  on me!"

"What are you talking about, girl? There's a fight happening out there. Do you want to die?"

"No one is going to die if only you'd let me get to him!"

"'Him'? Who are you even talking about?"

That, of course, was a question which Yui Ichijou couldn't really answer, but even if she could, it was probably pointless by now – If she remembered the proceedings correctly, Shinji Ikari must have been sitting in his EVA by now, or at the very least, have reached NERV headquarters where she could hardly get to him without fighting her way past half of NERV's security, which was impossible for her in her current situation – She was familiar enough with the routines of NERV's security agents to make her way to Shinji on the surface, but the same couldn't be said about the civilian police force that had apprehended her just a few days earlier. – that's what she got for getting herself caught.

The well-meaning patrol officer had caught her loitering in the middle of the night and dragged her to social services, where they had decided to place her in a foster family until they'd determine her identity, but she doubted that they'd find any records of a person who had never existed in this particular world.

Her movements had been far less restricted when she'd still had her device, but without it, she was something she had never been before: just an ordinary girl with no special powers or abilities, and the however benevolent actions of the authorities made it all too clear.

There was nothing she could do, she knew it, and it frustrated her to no end.

* * *

The creature had brought its Vessel as close to itself as it could afford without putting her in danger, but now, it needed its strength for the battle.

On the furthest outskirts of the city, where it bordered the fields, a silent, pale girl with long dark hair and big round glasses could be found half-leaning on her bicycle, with no real memory of how she'd gotten here – all she could recall was a tremendous amount of pain and an overwhelming sensation of heat. She still felt nauseous; the steady, agonizing throbbing in her stomach made it difficult to stay on her feet.

The wind blowing through her dark hair called her attension to the deluge of sweat that clung to her skin and clothing - and despite it she was shaking with cold chills; Breathing felt hard, as if there were a pressure on her chest, and she felt so weak as if she might faint at any moment – the cool of her bicycle chassis was the only thing she could really cling to for some sort of orientation, the rest of the world seemed to blur before her eyes.

What was even going on?

This wasn't her new school... but why would she even be there, in such a state as this? She must have gone outside to catch some fresh air, or perhaps to go home, but this wasn't her home either...

Eventually, she won against the smothering, pervasive sense of fatigue that clouded her consciousness and had a look around her surroundings, but as soon as she did that, she really wished she hadn't.

Before her was a ravaged battlefield which hosted a battle between an enormous demon in purple armor and something resembling a skyscraper-sized rainbow pipe cleaner – by the looks of it, the fight hat been going on for a while; Much of the landscape that might once have been as green as her immediate surroundings had been transformed into a melange of ash and mud, and strewn across this dark arena that marred the valley like a scar were a variety of spent weapons that meant nothing to the girl, but signified far more to the boy at the helm of the war machine.

At this point, he had pretty much tried everything: Guns and rifles from a variety of calibers, energy weapons, blaster, bazookas, miniguns, spears, tridents, halberd, sables, even a flail – at the moment he was swinging around a sword but it, too, didn't seem to be inflicting any lasting damage.

He'd come to realize one thing: The Evangelion's titanic body knew no fatigue. But this merely put them at a stalemate, as this creature still refused to take any sort of damage.

Admittedly, he had been able to prevent further damage to Unit One, but the battle seemed to be dragging on forever, and even though he believed to have seen the occasional squirt of blood spraying from his opponent, he still couldn't find that goddamned core.

"Let me go!" Asuka demanded. "Wanna bet that I'll find that stupid core in less than five minutes?"

Misato disagreed: "I don't think we can 'find' it like it's some sort of Easter egg. I mean, Shinji keeps slicing that thing like it's a Salami, if the core was somewhere inside, it should be cut to ribbons by now."

"This is cheating!" the Second Child bemoaned. "Could it be that this thing doesn't have a core at all?"

Dr. Akagi disagreed: "That's impossible. The core is the part of an angel that contains its soul. It's where its power source is held. And angel can no more live without a core than a human can live without a brain. It  _has_  to have one. "

"Yes, but  _where?_ " Misato replied.

Hyuuga hat to admit defeat: "Our scans still haven't found it. It's like it simply isn't there."

"Could the angel be hiding it somehow?"

Dr. Akagi replied firmly, schooting down Misato's speculation: "Impossible. No matter how well it might be concealed, Shinji-kun should have hit it by now."

Then, of all sudden, the young female technician let out a sharp exclamation: "Oh my god..."

"What is it, Maya?"

"Down there! We have a trespassing civilian! And it's a student at that..."

Shinji felt the blood freezing in his veins – he was experiencing a rather  _un_ subtle Deja Vu and for once, it had nothing to do with any sort of prophetic dreams. It was hard to overlook her, considering his interface immediately had her identified, marked and zoomed in without his lifting a finger: It was Mayumi.

She stood there next to a bicycle, half- terrified half-confused, frozen in place as she overlooked the battlefield, and he could imagine all too well how the sight must be tantamount to hell, especially for such an extremly shy girl.

He'd certainly been hoping for some opportunity to correct the blotched first impression he must have made on her, but this was  _not_  what he'd been picturing.

"Mi-mi-Misato-san..."

"There's an entrance leading to a shelter right over there! Bring her there and don't neglect your cover!"

Good. Orders. That spared him from having to figure out what to do, though it was still up to him to do it – He could forget jumping toward her position, even the Evangelion's regular steps caused incredible tremors – it was easier to forget now that he'd become much more nimble in his use of this biomechanical war machine.

Careful, almost on tiptoes, he did his best to move in her direction as cautiously as he could, but his efforts were spoiled when the Angel once again sent its middle segment hurling toward him. In order to stop it, he was forced to sprint forward, landing on his side – He didn't have to look at her to guess that Mayumi may well have been knocked off her feet, but at least he managed to protect her from worse by stopping the of the speedy aprroach Angel's disc by impaling it upon the blade of his progressive knife.

Much to his surprise, he could clearly see the cut he'd left in the Angel's flesh – his earlier impressions of having seen blood were not mistaken – the creature's physical substance was not at all imprevious to physical destruction.

But then, how?

His question was answered before he could finish posing it – pretty much as soon as he'd succeeded in drilling a hole into the disc, the flesh began to close around the knife; He had no choice but to hurl the knife into the distance along with the projectile.

That, however, should have bought him the time he'd need to get to Mayumi.

Without wasting a further second, he extended one of the Evangelion's hands toward her.

"Come. I'll get you to safety."

"I...Ikari-kun?"

"It's a long story... just come!"

Far too blanked out to even think of asking questions or talking back, she meekly followed his instructions so that he was able to deposit her at the entrance of the next bunker.

Of course, he couldn't see how she'd collapses almost as soon as she'd stumbled through the entrance gate.

"Shinji-kun, take care of the target!"

Of course. How could he ever forget it.

He would handle it, especially now that he'd understood – his attacks so far hadn't been ineffective at all, at least not all of them – it was just that this angel had some crazy fast regeneration powers.

"Misato-san! Please, I need a flamethrower... and a rifle with explosive shells, I think I've figured out how to beat it!"

At first a bit perplexed by his sudden enlightenment, the operation division's leader nonetheless didn't hesitate a single instant to authorize her young ward's request.

It was the explosive rifle that he got a hold of first.

BAM! BAM! BAM!  
And just like that, the seemingly invincible angel was marred by three big holes; The absence of large portions of its mass clearly visible for a moment – that is, before it grew back together in a manner of seconds.

"I see!" Akagi exclaimed, unsuccessful at hiding her considerable enthusiasm. "That could actually work!"

"Well done, Shinji-kun!" Misato, expectedly, praised the boy with fiery vigor. "Keep going! Don't let up! I don't think that thing is gonna back down until you've destroyed every last scrap of it!"

The younger Ikari did not need to hear this twice.

BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM!

He fired without reservation – he knew it would all be in vain if that thing was given the time to grow back together, so he was none too stingy with the munition;

When he'd emptied his magazines and left the angel reduced to a lattice of many bubble-shaped holes which nonetheless still defied gravity, it tried to swerve to the side to attack him but could move itself back into its original position in order to finish the move.

Justified by the laws of merited fear, he grabbed the flamethrower, cranked its output up to maximum and aimed it directly at the messenger's remains.

Then, there was only light – and the distant sound of a heartbeat.

When the blinding veil of the spherical explosion dissipated, it revealed a compact crater than had been melted into the ground... and a basically intact EVA 01.

It barely needs mentioning that the command center erupted in praise and jubilation – Misato in particular made no secret of the great pride she felt.

As far as Shinji was concerned, the whole thing rather embarrassed him and he was grateful that they probably couldn't see his rapidly reddening face.

Sure, a part of why he was doing this was that he'd been longing for people's approval, but... he didn't feel like he deserved this.

He almost wished they wouldn't do this, except, that didn't seem quite right either. He didn't really know...

It was like what he'd heard at Nagato's place, everyone seemed to be piecing this image together, this idea of a hero who had very little in common with him.

He could barely believe that he'd pulled this off at all, it was more like a … coincidence, if it weren't for Misato, he probably would have lost his head several times over.

It seemed ridiculous – Even  _Asuka_ had some nice words to offer for a change: "Not bad, Daddy's boy! Not like I wouldn't have thought of it in your place, but hey! You almost seemed like a proper pilot today! Sure, you'll probably never match up to my level, but if you keep this up, you're well underway to make up for your lack of preparation!"

But for all the praise, Shinji didn't really know what to make of it, as long as that  _one_  man remained silent as a statue.

* * *

"He might not look the part, but it does seem like the boy got at least  _some_  of his mother's brilliance... don't you think so, too, Ikari?"

The Commander didn't answer, but he did lift his head beyond its usual position half-hidden behind the hands he'd folded over the table, as if to get a closer look at the screen.

Something in his expression seemed to deviate from his usual harsh, strict look, though even Fuyutsuki couldn't have said how exactly it was 'different'.

Perhaps it seemed a little more, well, neutral.

* * *

When Mayumi came back to her senses, she felt cold and depleted, but surprisingly, the pain had receded – indeed, she hadn't felt this free of it in a long, long time, it was as if whatever discomfort she'd felt in the recent past had completely vanished, like it had never existed anywhere other than in her perceptions to begin with.

Much of what she'd experienced that day was too dreadful to give it further thought, but as she dragged herself back some, there was one thing that burned itself into her mind: That boy... Shinji, or whatever his name was... had saved her life.

* * *

Following both the battle and the following debriefing, Misato summarized both in a few words: "Great work!"

She made a deliberate choice to let that statement percolate a bit, however, that wasn't all she had to say: "Now, I wish I could leave all of you to your well-deserved rest after this, but..."

"But  _what?_ " Asuka demanded to know.

Somberly, Misato explained: "Rei and Unit Zero are still under orders to remain on standby in headquarters."

"HÄÄÄÄ? But why?!" the redhead exclaimed. "But we already  _beat_  the angel, didn't we?"

"The order came directly from Commander Ikari."

"Too bad!" Asuka's voice and the condescending way in which she leaned over to Rei with a snotty grin said much about her badly-feigned sympathy and even worsely concealed spite: "Well, it's not like we're too badly interested in your affairs..."

Without even blinking, Rei replied tonelessly: "So it is."

She didn't even have the courtesy to turn in Asuka's direction or look her in the face, and the way that weird girl insisting on continually ignoring her existence drove her up the heights of the walls.

"And what about me?"

"You can go back to school, as always, Shinji-kun."

He felt somewhat guilty about that.

"Er, well then, good luck Ayanami."

"There is no reason to worry."

She said that so lightly... If he and Asuka would be able to keep up their normal lives despite the situation, the only because Rei would remain behind in their stead.

She'd be all alone in headquarters while the rest of them would be having fun and hanging out with their friends... even though it didn't seem like Rei did either of these things all too often, even when she  _wasn't_  stuck at headquarters. She'd told him that there was no point in worrying about her, but to be honest, that didn't really convince him and besides, what if he  _wanted_  to worry about her?

"Cripes!" Asuka commented as she stretched her limbs as bit, drawing Shinji's attention back to her. "We spent the whole day soaking in LCL, and I didn't even get to fight an Angel!"

Ponderously pulling at her chin with her fingers, Misato cautioned her to reconsider: "Better be careful what you wish for."

"What do you mean?" asked Shinji.

"Well, there's a chance that Asuka might get the fight she's looking for. When the Angel exploded to day, we didn't see the usual 'Sea of Blood' phenomenon we saw all the other times, and there wasn't a pillar of light, either. Besides, we never found the core. That's why Rei was ordered to stay behind in the first place. The Commander suspects that we haven't seen the last of that angel."

"So what!" Asuka declared without a care in the world. "If that thing dares to show it's ugly mug around here again, we'll just beat it  _again!_

We have more than enough fighting power to do that, considering just one of us was enough to take it out the first time!"

"Yeah, that's probably true."

Misato wished she could be surer of this, though.

* * *

"I've kept my eyes closed, so how come I can't sleep...?"

Shinji had tried every possible position, but even blocking the traffic noises out with music hadn't really helped.

About half an hour since he'd laid down, Shinji finally gave up and stared at the ceiling in resignation.

What was it that was keeping him from rest?

Was it what Nagato had told him? Was it the things he'd said about himself, about Shinji, or about their class?

Was it Yui's prophecies, and how they'd been correct last time but off today? In the end, he'd still won, so why did this worry him?

Or was it... because of Asuka?"

 _("Not bad!" - "It's not about_ that! _" - The sight of her breasts spilling out of her nightgown...)_

Or, because of Ayanami?

_(That smile... he hadn't forgotten it. "See you later." - "There is no need to worry.")_

Or was it... today's battle? After all, it had been a matter of life or death, and given how hopeless it had seemed at first, it was surprisingly that he wasn't much more worked up about it.

Not to think of that monster, that fat, headless rainbow bumblebee...

He'd seen worse.

...seen worse? That way of thinking seemed remarkably unlike himself, but it was still true.

This wasn't about the battle, which was almost frightening in its own way, but the real cause of his restlessness lay somewhere else.

It was just that he still, well...

" _Now listen up, Daddy's boy! If you always give up right away, nothing is_ ever  _going to change! If you can't even stand up for what's important to you, and allow others to walk all over you, it's just proof that you don't have any confidence in yourself!"_

Yeah, that was it. This was about yesterday morning, not so much about what Asuka did but what she'd said. He'd been reminded of it because of Nagato... and because of Mayumi.

...proof that he didn't have any confidence?

Well of course! Why  _would_  he be confident anyways?

He knew better than anyone that he wasn't exactly worth putting one's confidence in.

'Unstable', as they said at NERV whenever they thought he was out of earshot...

Misato kept telling him to have more faith in himself and... Nagato had done the same, as had everyone else – even Asuka told him this, in her own kind of way.  _Especially_ Asuka.

But...

" _Yeah sure! No matter what's going on, you apologize just to be sure! Do you honestly think that everything is always your fault?"_

But he just didn't feel comfortable trusting himself, or anyone else for that matter. He knew exactly that he was going to fail and disappoint everyone, including himself, and everyone would leave him once they realized that he wasn't  _worth_  sticking with.

_(He recalled that tall, dark silhouette at the train station, the distance between them increasing with every step...)_

That had always been a fact to him, one of the pillars of the world: He always did everything no matter what, so it was only appropriate that he should apologize – That's what you were supposed to do when you did something wrong, right?

But at that, he had to think back to his encounter with Mayumi – she hadn't wasted a second considering which of them had ran into whom and immediately declared herself to be the guilty party... the very thing Asuka accused him of doing.

It was clear to him that Mayumi wasn't the one to blame, at least not the  _only_ one, so why would she apologize?

Well, perhaps for the very reason he'd just outlined, the same reason why  _he_  did it: Because he didn't trust himself. Perhaps it was the same with her – he didn't trust himself to do anything right and what more, he could never be sure that he hadn't made some mistake that he wasn't aware of, so he was always ready to apologize for some unseen mistake.

It only made sense – so what was Asuka so worked up over?

She'd told him to act like a man and stand up for himself... for  _himself?_  What sort of bad joke was this supposed to be? Sure, the idea of it sounded nice, but even if he had the courage to do it, how could he go through with it in good conscience when he felt ashamed of all that he was?

How could he, when he knew he would fail and disappoint everyone who'd ever had those high expectations of him?

To do any of that, he'd have to be much stronger.

If only he were stronger, he wouldn't have to have all these doubts. He'd be able to win Asuka's respect, and protect Ayanami – if only he were stronger, he might even change the future of this ill-fated world...

But wait. Perhaps, he was looking at this the wrong way.

Sure, he wasn't the sort of hero some people thought he was, but he  _had_  helped Nagato find his place in their class, and today, he had without a doubt, saved Mayumi's life. He'd protected Asuka and Ayanami as well... and Touji & Kensuke, too. Through his efforts, this whole city, no, the whole world had been kept from being destroyed many times over.

He hadn't done it alone, but who could, considering the scope of the task?

Perhaps, this meant that he had  _already_  become stronger than he used to be, even just a little bit...

Those changes... and the things people were saying about him... they were ultimately good things, right?

In actuality, it didn't even matter whether he was stronger already, the important part was that it was  _possible._

He'd  _already_ made a difference for the better, and not just in such small things as Misato's diet.

So there was, at the very least, the  _possibility_  for him to become stronger.

He  _had_  to become stronger.

He might not be the hero they expected right now, and perhaps he would never be, but at the very least, he had to  _try_  to change himself.

Perhaps that's why he had come here in the first place, and why he'd agreed to pilot the Evangelion – because he wanted to change himself and his life.

He had to become stronger, so that perhaps someday, he wouldn't have t apologize for himself anymore, so that he could look in the mirror without feeling ashamed or disgusted.

* * *

So... how about Kensuke's masterplan for the school festival? How will Kaji's investigations succeed? And will Asuka get her chance to kick some angel butt? Find out in Chapter 2.11: [The Second Impression]


	30. 11: [The Second Impression]

##  ****11: [The Second Impression]** **

  
\---

_**I'm just a teenage dirtbag baby** _

Like you  
  


_-Wheatus, ‚Teenage Dirtbag‘_

 

 

\---  
  
  


The dream that chased him this night was much like its most recent predecessors, a mixture somewhere between one of those prophetic visions and a regular dream. It didn't show scenes of destruction, but rather a medley of fantasies, wishful thinking & some of the topics that the young EVA pilot was currently concerned about, much like a regular dream would – this time, it didn't even certain around particularly crypic or fearsome things, which was a relief considering how much crap he had to deal with in his waking life these days, things that could have driven grown men to despair, let alone shy teenaged boys.

Still, there were a few things about it that were 'off' and simply beyond what ought to have shown up in the simple waste products of his subconscious, there were people whom he'd never seen before, but still found so familiar as if he'd known them for ages, not to speak of the general sense of uncanny familiarity that accompanied everything to do with these visions.

At this point, he'd simply started to accept it – in hindsight, he could have sword that he'd seen Mayumi in one of these dreams long before he could have any memory of her face, even though he'd only met her a couple of days ago – just as it had been with Asuka.

In the beginning, the dream had seemed rather harmless. He was wearing his apron, which, for some reason, was orange with an AT-field like print-pattern on it as opposed to its usual uniform green corner, and was peacefully cutting vegetables to prepare dinner for the Katsuragi household, for example, some carrots and scallions.

Just as he was mostly done with his task and just about to slide the veggies into a pot, he heard the sound of the living room door sliding open in a sudden, rapid fashion. Looking up from his culinary masterpiece to see who it might be, he found himself quite baffled.

There was something puzzling, even random about the sight before him: It was Rei, and for some reason, she was wearing her plug suit, complete with her interface headset.

Holding on to the door frame, with her gaze slightly lowered, she presented a sight that Shinji couldn't help but blush at, even though it made no sense – Shinji would have expected to see her at NERV or even at school, but here? What were the odds of him just finding her standing around at his apartment.

He was glad to see her of course but he couldn't think of any reason for her to be here.

“Uhm, Hello Ayanami.” he greeted her, in a friendly if somewhat guarded manner.

“What brings you here?”

She looked up, directly into his eyes.

“Ikari-kun...” It was her voice, but it didn't really sound like her speaking.

She'd spoken his name deliberately, slowly and full of feeling, as if she were at the very least hoping or the salvation of her soul. She said it like he'd always _wished_ she would...

“What's the matter Ayanami, is everything okay?”

Instead of giving a logical answer, she stumbled in his direction, sending him to the heavens with yet another slight motion of her rosy lips: “Ikari-kun... Ohh...”

One pornotastic sigh/moan later, she seemed to be pulling a dramatic faint worthy of a victory heroine, prompting Shinji to leave the vegetables behind in order to offer his arms was a landing strip.

“A-Ayanami... what's going on?”

This was getting seriously _weird._

A few adorable whimpers later, he could feel her shuddering in her arms, ostensibly working to pull herself together as her hands reached out to grasp his shoulders; She looked up to him with huge, longing eyes.

“Ikari-kun... I... I need...”

“What is is? What do you need? Water? Aspirine? A Phone?”

“I need you do do something...” she said, lifting her shaking, angelic hand, which in the glove of her snow white plugsuit almost appeared to be made out of porcelain. Tenderly, she grasped one of his hands with her own, detaching it from her shoulder.

“What is it, Ayanami? What do you need me to do?”

“I need you to... do me.”

And then, without wasting any further time, she placed his hand on her taunt, roundish breast, which, through the thin fabric of her plugsuit, didn't feel all that different from how it would in the nude. Needless to say, his hand had bitterly missed her boobies since their last fortunate encounter and was overjoyed to meet them again after such a long and arduous period of separation – if these were a comedy, he would be passed out on the floor with a nosebleed by now.

The tingly sensation spreading throughout his body was unreal; just from that single touch, he felt hot and cold all over – his attempts to knead and stimulate her breast somewhat where closer to involuntary twitches carried out by his fingers while his mind had just blown a hole in the ceiling as it was being shot to another Galaxy – and it soon dawned on him that this was only the beginning as a pair of slender, rosy arms embraced him from behind and swiftly proceeded to the relevant body parts.

It was Asuka, who for some unlikely reason was wearing nothing but a rose-colored apron, and playfully menaced him with a playful evil smile as she slipped one of her long and lovely legs between his own. Thanks to the usual illogic of dreams, he could see all this even though she was supposed to be standing behind him... and what about that warm sensation on his right thigh?

Misato, in her red uniform jacket and some of the lacy underwear he sometimes had the duty of washing. She was sitting on the floor in a pose reminiscent of a cat, hugging his leg and taking it upon herself to lick across the tiny hairs on his skin with her tongue, even though he'd been 100% certain that he'd been wearing pants just a moment ago.

But if she was sitting to his right, whose were the fingertips that were gently stroking across the left side of his loins?

...Rei again? He'd blame it on some kind of double vision if she wasn't wearing a whole different outfit, to be exact, a _very_ loose-fitting hospital gown. At least her expression resembled what he had come to expect from the First Child he was familiar with, so he hadn't gone _completely_ gaga yet, which was vaguely comforting.

“Oh Ayanami, I didn't know you had a twin sister....”

“I do not. Probably, this means I am the Third...” There were indeed three of her, as there was another blue haired girl sitting next to her and looking up expectantly, clad in, of all things, a _black_ plugsuit.

“If Ayanami Rei were here, would she wish to copulate with you?”

“I am right here.” the Rei-like person in the hospital gown replied. “Does that answer your question?”

“I think so.” the one in black replied. “So what's next? Are there any orders from the commander?”

“To hell with the commander!” the self-professed number three commented. “Another Ikari needs us now.”

Oookey. There _is_ something like too much of a good thing. If Shinji's head didn't explode right then and there, then only because the laws of physics did not apply in dreams. But not even the power of imagination could keep him from losing his footing.

His landing was surprisingly soft if one considered that both Asuka and the kitchen counter should have been standing behind him – but rather than colliding with either of them, he eventually wound up in a laying position.

Dazed, he looked up, and instead of his familiar kitchen, he found a butt naked, silver-haired youth casually smiling down at him without a care in the world.

If he'd thought that his face had hit peak tomato before, he had evidently been wrong. He was certain that his fingertips and toes must have been paper-white as most the blood was being needed in his face, and ...other places.

“Oh... it's you, Kaworu-kun.” He concluded, even though he had no idea how he could possibly know the stranger's name if he'd never seen him before in his life. Ironically, this was currently the _least_ implausible thing about this whole situation.

In violation of all common sense, something told him that the boy's unperturbed calm smile was one of the last oases of normalcy.

“You're not wearing any clothes, Kaworu-kun...”

“Why shouldn't I be?” he asked, bemusedly. “There is nothing to be ashamed of.... and that also goes for _you_ , Shinji-kun.”

“Exactly! Don't be so shy!”

Another girl, someone he didn't know. Short, reddish-brown hair, freckles and a pink towel.

“M-Mana-chan...”

The soft landing just now?

Yeah, that was her lap.

“Do you remember the last time we saw each other?”

Of course not.

Except.... yes.

“Why don't you return the favor from back then and take off your clothes?”

“Exactly, Ikari-san!” cheered another girl, a somewhat older one with long brown hair. Her accent, facial structure and the shape of her chin all had something familiar about them, though he couldn't say what. She was wearing a blue neckerchief and a white dress so short that he didn't need any helpful Deja Vues to guess that she normally wore something beneath it.

“As your assigned medical officer, I prescribe some serious undressing! Regular sexual intercourse is supposed to burn calories and improve one's mood!”

“That sounds like a great idea to me! Don't you also think so, Shinji-kun?”

Mayumi. Heaven knows why she was addressing him by his first name... or why she was still wearing her glasses even though she was otherwise naked.

“Here, let me help you.”, she proclaimed, cautiously unbuttoning his uniform shirt... who knew where his apron had disappeared to – oh, right, there it was. It was being thoroughly sniffed by yet another nude girl – this one, he had seen before in a vision, the one with the red plastic glasses, blue Alice band and galactotastic mammaries.

“Your scent is really delicious, puppy boy.” She spoke in a slow, sultry manner and not without occasionally licking her lips. “Smells like LCL, teenage hormones and freshly cut green onions~”

Ooookay. Could someone please tell him where the nearest insane asylum was? He'd like to turn himself in.

Of course, his subconscious was nowhere near done with him: Despite all unbelievable transfigurations that both himself and the room had been subjected to, he now again felt Ayanami's weight on his chest, clinging to him as if she'd been there all along, plugsuit included – so it was the first version of her, or was it actually second ? – in any case, the one he knew.

She was observing his face with her lovely Ruby eyes, and the words she said were, to his ears, like a promise of a magic land of milk and honey: “Do... me...”

  
  


BAM.

The usual Deja-Vu symptoms were overshadowed by the far more physical aching of his skull.

When Shinji finally made a tentative move to open his eyes, he was not met with a rather frisky Rei (well of course not), but rather, with the old familiar ceiling of his room, though it seemed to be a bit further away than usual.

Thanks to a mixture of residual tiredness, his aching head and the slight confusion that usually accompanied an all-too-sudden awakening, he needed a while to realize that the towering shadow at the edge of his vision field was his bed, and that his pillow had seemed a bit harder than usual because it wasn't a pillow at all, but rather, the carpet on his room's flooring.

At least, part of the blanket had been kind enough to follow him when he'd rolled out of his resting place. Ouch.

He decided to consider the dull pain on the back of his head as the just divine punishment for his dirty thoughts.

He should probably be ashamed – for one thing, he'd barely known Mayumi for two days, and he'd already incorporated her into his perverted fantasies. Not to think of how she might react if she ever found out – she'd probably scream & be traumatized and everything -

Or, if _Asuka_ were to find out due to some crazy twist of fate...

She'd be furious about her own involvement, no doubt, but he didn't even want to consider what she'd say about the presence of that _boy_ – heck, _he_ didn't want to consider it.

Cold shower. Right now. No Delays.

  
  


\----  
  


After this rather undignified start to his day, it was hardly surprising that the Third Child had a rather Zombie-like look about him when he finally stumbled past the bathroom door, where he was met with a supremely displeased Asuka whose patience had long since run out.

After voicing her complaints in a swift yet effective dressing-down, she briskly dissapeared into the bathroom, slamming the door for effect, and none of it made this terrible morning any better.

Bizarrely, he was now faced with the prospect of cutting up some _actual_ vegetables for the morning soup, but there mere thought of it caused both his blood and the memories of his dream to rush into his head.

Toast!

For today, the good old toaster would have to suffice for the task of procuring their breakfast.

Curse those hormones, and curse that thrice-damned puberty! Why couldn't it result in something _nice_ for a change, like for example a nice little growth spurt, or how about a deep, manly voice? Perhaps then he'd have a theoretical chance of scoring in _real life_ for once... you'd think his genetics would have been amenable to this, given that his old man was a sheer skyscraper of a man – the only reason he didn't keep running into door frames was probably that even the buildings had the sense to stay out of his way.

Life could be so unfair!

Since this day had already begun under unfavorable auspices, Shinji thought it for the best to avoid further misfortune by using Asuka's usually lengthy time in the bath to produce a placating breakfast as soon as possible, but once he got a good look at the table, it became obvious that he'd have to clean it up first – It was covered in the leftovers of diverse instant meals and several mostly empty bottles whose remaining contents had probably long since spoiled in this heat, and last but not least the empty but nonetheless still greasy plastic boxes from yesterday.

At least with the latter, he knew where they had come from – not even Misato could have been lazy enough to make him cook dinner after the exertion of yesterday's battle, so that she'd planned in an extra stop on the way home in order to get all of them some fried noodles with duck and peanut sauce from the local Chinese takeout.

Unfortunately, her suspiciously generous offer to clean up the packaging herself turned out to be little but hot air.... seems like he was stuck with the job for now.

That, however, did not account for the empty cup of instant noodles, the package of Fish&Dip complete with an empty bag of sauce or the likewise empty can of beer. At least, this particular pile of trash had been left behind with an explanation on a little piece of paper that now also littered the table: “Good Morning, Shin-chan!” (There was a little heart scribbled here.) “Just so you don't worry where I've ended up, I forgot to tell you that I got the early shift today! Have a nice Day! - Misato.”

He didn't think there could have been any other culprit.

With a sigh, he went about filling the local penguin's food bowl with a bit of Tuna before he moved to dig out the sliced bread and clear up the chaos on the table. At least, he now knew that he'd only have to make two portions, of which he did manage to finish one by the time Asuka left the shower in spite of the delay caused by the cluttered table.

Naturally, he didn't even expect any thanks – Asuka briefly complained that the honey on one of the toasted bread slices was going to make her fat (the other was covered with cottage cheese and decorated with some herbs), but she ate it nonetheless.

It was about then that the toaster spat out the other two slices with an audible 'bling!', and this was the moment that Asuka chose to ask a question that had been clinging to her tongue for quite a while now, but had not yet managed to pull free of it due to various circumstances:

Now, after she'd seen a display of his more competent side just the day before, as he was busy spreading the toppings on the bread and therefore incapable of spotting any uncertainty in her eyes, she at least began to consider to stop beating around the bush: “You seem to be out of luck. With the First stuck at headquarters like this, we'll never get to see whatever cute little project the two of you cooked up.”

Why did she always have to tease him?

“It's not like that... Who told you that we're on the same project?” Even though his back was currently turned to her, his pupils still slid to the side in shame as if he were avoiding some unseen eyes in the kitchen wall. It was simply the force of habit at this point.

Having failed to even consider the thought, he felt beset by sudden guilt – He probably _should_ have asked Rei to work on some project together – after all, who else was going to do it?

Of course, in the end, it wouldn't have mattered anyways, from the looks of it, Rei wouldn't be able to participate or even attend the festival at all...

These broodings were quickly sidetracked by Asuka's surprisingly surprised reaction, though: “You're _not_ working with her?” Perhaps he was more loyal to her than she'd thought. “That's great! Then you can help with _my_ project! I mean, of course I have all the skills needed to complete the project on my own, but unfortunately, there's only one of me – I'm one of a kind, so to speak, and the festival is tomorrow... Simply put, I could use someone to help me with the menial tasks so that I get everything finished in time.

Don't worry, it should be easy enough even for you, all the parts of the plan that require much thinking will be _my_ responsibility.”

“Why don't you ask the class rep to help you? Aren't you two friends?”

Shinji wondered why she was asking _him_ of all people. Didn't she have lots of willing admirers? Or did she simply get a kick out of pushing him around and barking orders at him?

First she called him a spineless wimp, and then, she attempted to draft him as her personal gopher like she couldn't wait to make him carry her stuff or something...

“Are you an idiot? As the class representative, Hikari's going to be busy organizing the logistics and everything! I can't just bother her over such a trifle!”

But she could bother _him_ , apparently.

“What sort of project will you even be doing...?”

“That's classified! Top Secret! You'll find out soon enough. But rest assured that it's gonna be way cooler than anything you or your stupid friends would think of!”

And as soon as she'd finished speaking, she stuffed the last remainder of her toast into her mouth and took off without sparing him any further glances.

She hadn't even thought to ask him if he had signed up for anything else, let alone if he even _wanted_ to take part in her mystery project... and 'mystery' surely meant that she herself had no clue what she was going to do...

Despite all this, Shinji wore a thin smile as he finally moved to address his own breakfast. Probably, Asuka wasn't even _capable_ to ask for another person's help in any other way than this.... anything else would be considered beneath her.

But that didn't change that she'd actually asked for his help. He was glad enough that she'd dropped the cold shoulder act, but that she'd actually _want_ to work with him, albeit for a fairly trivial matter, well, the implications of that brought a pleasant warmth to his cheeks.

But either way, he'd have to hurry up and eat if he didn't want to be late for school.

 

\----

 

Ultimately, Shinji had left the apartment with a slice of toast in hand; Asuka had been so quick to dash for a reason, as it was getting somewhat late.

He tried to cover the distance to the school as briskly as he could, but there were certain limits owed to the fact that the Third Child had never been all too athletic.

When he passed the alleyway where he'd previously encountered Ichijou Yui, he paused briefly, half expecting her to jump out of the woodwork and explain the errors in her prediction, but she didn't show up, and he didn't have the time to wait or her.

Perhaps it was better this way.

Asuka must have reached the school by now – and Shinji wouldn't have been surprised if the same were true of his friends, in any case, he did not encounter them on his way.

Instead, he became involved in a whole other unexpected meeting: Just as he passed a small bookshop that he'd often walked past without ever really taking note of it and was about to do just that once again like he must have done it hundreds of times before, it's door slid open and revealed something that immediately grabbed his attention: A bespectacled girl with long dark hair, carrying a small pink bag containing several books.

It was Mayumi.

As soon as she'd stepped out of the shop, she looked at him with huge eyes and expressed her surprise at finding him here of all places with a most likely involuntary “Oh!”

By the looks of it, it would be up to him to address her. “Eh... fancy meeting you here, Yamagishi-san!”

He donned his nicest smile. “Uh, don't tell me you got up all early in the morning just to come here and look at books.”

“Well, yes... These here are new... and who knows if they'll be sold out in the afternoon...”

“You're probably right. Still, you must really like books if you'll drag yourself out of bed so early just to buy some...”

Okay, that probably sounded hella awkward. Still, if it did, it didn't change much about Mayumi's slightly nervous, but nonetheless genuine smile.

“Say, Ikari-kun... Can I ask you something?”

“Go ahead.”

“Would you mind... walking to school with me? Just for the rest of the way?”

This question sparked no small amount of agitation, and Shinji tightly gripped the strap of his school bag in order to give it an outlet other than his face or his voice.

Never before had a girl asked him to accompany her on the way to school – Sure, he'd frequently walked home alongside Asuka, but that was for rather more pragmatic reasons given their shared places of work and residence – this type of ceremonial offer was a whole different animal...

“Yes of course, Yamagishi-san. I'd be glad to.”

“Thank goodness then...”

“Really?”

“Well, uh, it's much nicer when you walk together, isn't it?”

She didn't confirm this from her own experience, but she could imagine after all this time observing how happy all the other students seemed to be.

Shinji, however, knew the difference all too well: “Yes. That's very true.... So let's go then, it would be bad if you were late on your second day at our school.”

Mayumi just nodded.

Side by side, they walked beneath the golden sun which at least for the moment, seemed to be shining especially for them; Even the prospect of arriving late didn't bother them to badly, it would be forgettable compared to the novel, unexpected yet fulfilling experience of this moment, simple as it may have been.

After a while, Mayumi decided to open a conversation: “Mh... Thanks a lot. And sorry...”

“For what? What do you mean?”

“Thanks for... saving me... and sorry... for being in the way.”

“It's okay, don't worry about it. It's just what anyone would have done, it's, uh, part of my job, so to speak.”

None of them really knew how to continue the conversation, but they didn't have to either. The subtle blushes on their smiling faces said all that needed to be said.

Shinji guessed that he could now consider her a new friend despite any earlier embarrassing incidents, or perhaps, even, something else...

He supposed that saving their life would have that effect on a person, it wasn't the first time he'd witnessed the, uh, phenomenon.

She was definitely right that it was... way nicer to walk this path together, and he hoped that today had been a sufficient demonstration for her.

_Babum, babum, babum..._

As with all soaring heights, it was unavoidable that one would eventually be reminded to look down and be reminded that all dreams must end one day, and the steady throbbing in her innermost brusquely pulled Mayumi from these cloudy heights back to her place in the shadows.

She'd been unusually free of discomfort since yesterday and even now, the pain was only a faint ghost of what she'd felt yesterday, but this clear, evident sound of a heartbeat far away from where her own heart should have been refused to be rationalized away –

And as if she were suddenly mocked by laughter from behind a veil, she realized what she had just done: She'd actually talked to someone, and actually said what she'd _meant_ to say. She'd asked him to stay at her side.

She always thought she lacked the courage for that, but, the impression that he was somehow like her, and the knowledge that he'd been looking at her earlier made everything a lot easier, somehow...

Carefully, she placed a hand on her pulsating abdomen.

“What am I even doing...” she thought to herself. “This isn't like me at all...”

Her companion's mildly concerned “What's the matter?” barely registered in her consciousness. The throbbing seemed to fill out her entire form, like water fills a vase.

“What... what is this...”

“Yamagishi-san, are you alright?”

And then, it was suddenly over.

“Yeah, I'm fine... Let us go.”

 

\---

 

At this point, Shinji wouldn't have remotely believed that anyone could possibly get jealous over his person – and thus, he made no attempt to conceal his arrival alongside Mayumi.

He did appreciate it when the teacher showed up soon after him (Somehow they'd made it in time), but only because Touji wouldn't get the chance to tease him about his plus one – He had taken that risk, however, since he didn't want Mayumi to think that he was ashamed to be seen with her. He knew that she had a tendency to take the blame for anything... and he also knew what that felt like –

Even so, he did not even suspect what Asuka experienced when he showed up with a girl in tow and calmly took his seat after he'd taken off that other chick's bag in an artful displayof gentlemanly gallantry and showed her where to find the corresponding hooks on this school's preferred model of desk.

So far, Asuka had barely taken note of that girl... who was she even? Wasn't she that new transferee? Dammit. Granted, seeing him with a more or less normal girl was far preferable from having him fuss over that antisocial First Child, but he was supposed to be interested in _her_ and her _only_.

When it came to winning over that loser, she hadn't thought that she'd have any rivals _at all_ , let alone _this many!_ Nor had she ever really considered that she might lose him to a rival – Though his infatuation with her was aggravating, the First Child was no more a real threat than their household toaster.

But technically, he'd been fairly popular with practically half the school all along – she just never took it seriously, considering he was oblivious and socially inept enough to ensure that nothing ever happened... until now, that is.

What did they even see in him?

Alright- alright, she knew better than most that he had his strong points, but, still.

She'd have to find some way to get his attention... and such an opportunity presented itself when the teacher decided that it was once again time to quiz his unlucky students on the latest topics, a situation that habitually led to most of the class shivering in fear and praying that one of the smart kids would be called to answer today – or at least that it wouldn't be themselves.

Correspondingly, there were widespread signs of relief when the teacher chose Asuka as his first victim – and usually, it would not have been unusual for her to spit out the right answer without delay, but today, for whatever reason, she'd been sufficiently lost in thought for the teacher's voice to forcibly snap her out of it and leave her appearing mildly startled, if only for a moment.

“You mean me?”

“Yes, you.”

Then, she read the question displayed on the screen in front of her nose – and swallowed.

Of course she could probably have solved it on her own given some time to think (or so she told herself), but she simply decided to make use of the old teacher's mild senility in order to draw some of Shinji's attention – the old geezer occasionally forgot to turn off the internal messaging system beforehand, which effectively defeated the point of questioning the students _individually –_ Asuka clicked on the relevant button and – Bingo!

Today was again one of those auspicious days!

'What the hell is the answer?!' she types swiftly.

 

Naturally, the Third Child was quite surprised when that little message appeared on his screen. All things considered it was rather typical, though: Always with the bragging, but whenever things got though, she'd be like 'Hey, Third Child, come and fix this mess! Rescue me o ye knight in shining armor!'

He was aware that this was pretty much cheating, but on the other hand he couldn't just leave her hanging, that didn't seem right either. He looked at the question – mercifully, it was about one of the topics that he'd covered in his little study session at Nagto's place, so Asuka could officially count her butt as saved.

'It's answer C.'

 

“Answer C!” she echoed immediately, as if by remote control.

“Very well!” the teacher praised. “I see that you take your studies very seriously.”

“Well, we've got this saying in Germany. _Ohne Fleiß keinen Preis_ : No effort, no reward!”

she grinned, beaming like a Christmas light.

What was _that_ supposed to be now.

Effort? More like hypocrisy, but by now he was used to it (and also, complicit. )

It would be one thing if she'd at least deigned it appropriate to return the favorwhen he turned out to be the very next person on the teacher's radar – The very moment the question appeared on the screen, he knew he was screwed. Ironically, the question that would affect his own grades was the one he had absolutely no clue about.

He couldn't even say if he'd been when this topic had been discussed – out on a battle deployment perhaps? Soaking in LCL during a synchronization test? Simply too taken with whatever big question of the universe he had been pondering at the time?

In any case, he couldn't have named the answer to save his life – that is, until it appeared on the lower corner of his screen.

Was that Asuka? Or perhaps Touji? Maybe Kensuke? Nagato was surely far too conscientious for this type of mischief, so who?

When he tentatively looked around, no one seemed to be expecting it... that is, until his line of sight passed Mayumi's seat lead him to fnd her looking stragiht at him.

It made sense that she would have acquired the occasional piece of knowledge from all those books she was reading....

Man, her smile was cute.

Surely relieved if a little bit guilty, he finally gave the correct answer.

That was a close one.

 

\---

 

“Hey, Shinji, do you have some time?”

Looking up from his hastily finished notes after the end of class, he discovered his three friends assembled around his table. “Mh, sure, what for?”

“Planning of course!” Kensuke declared. “I came up with a cool idea for the school festival!”

Oh right, he'd almost forgotten about that... “I see.”

Then, like a bolt from the blue, they were unexpectedly interrupted by a female voice: “Stop it right there you stooges!” It was Asuka, and she made her intentions very clear by possessively slamming down her hand onto Shinji's desk.

“I'm afraid Daddy's boy here won't be able to fit you dumboes into his shedule. He's already promised to help me with _my_ project!”

Anything other than impressed, Touji crossed his arms. “Is that true, Shinji?”

“Well, I guess I didn't tell her no....”

“What's that supposed to mean!” Asuka complained. Not that the other side was much more pleased: “You traitor! Pick a side already!”

“You can't do both at once.” contributed Kensuke, his choice of words less drastical but his actual statement not very much different.

“Why don't we just all work together?”

But though Shinji's request had been cautions and conciliatory, he really should have known better than to expect it to work: “No way!”

For once, Asuka was in agreement with Touji, turning toward her flatmate to chew him out: “Exactly! You're just making excuses because you're too much of a wimp to make a decision! And there I was thinking that you were finally starting to act like a man... This is an all-time-low even by your standards!”

But beneath the mask of her anger, Asuka was deeply insulted, if not a little hurt – why couldn't he just own up to his actions for once in his life?

 

Shinji, for his part, was cursing his reluctance at saying 'No.' to things.

It was then that Nagato chose to intercede, perhaps in the hope that he might still lead this matter to a pleasant resolution: “Just calm down for a moment! Shinji's right when you think about it. Making peace is always the best way to resolve things, and didn't we just discuss that we need a girl anyways?”

They needed a girl...? This did make Shinji wonder what sort of project Kensuke might have cooked up there, but even so, he generally preferred to infuriate as few people as possible and predictably appreciated Nagato's efforts in that direction: “He's right. I mean come on, be honest, you're probably not even sure what your 'mystery project' is supposed to be yet. Working together would be convenient for you as well!”

That was the last straw. Now he was honestly accusing her of having no plans – and the worst was that she couldn't deny it.

“I _do_ have something planned!” she insisted, nonetheless. “I even went out of my way to pick something where even _your_ lackluster talents would have some room to shine, and you just leave me hanging? You're _so_ untrustworthy and unreliable!”

“Oh really? What is it then? Because I haven't seen you prepare for _anything!”_

“I... I was going to make cakes and snacks for our bake sale!” she lied.

It was the first thing that had come to her mind – for weeks, there was a flyer hanging on the pinboard right next to the staff room, informing the student body that they urgently needed someone to contribute provisions for the hungry crows of gawping parents, siblings and other relatives that were expected to arrive – A boring routine job that not many people signed up for as most of them wanted to do something more creative or original.

“Food spoils you dum-dum! There was no point in preparing anything before today... And besides, it's not like _you_ 've been all that productive so far!”

“ _Cake?_ That's supposed to be your great big mystery project that is so much better? Even I can tell that you only just made this up!”

“Nonsense! Don't blame _me_ , it's not like I could do anything else if I was gonna work with an idiot like _you!_ Baking cupcakes is all you're good for, except you won't even help me with _that!_ You know what? I'll just do it without you! I don't need _you_ for this, if anything, it will be much easier on my own!”

And then, she turned and left.

 

“Whoha.” Touji commented. “Seems like she really doesn't like it when anyone stands up to her ego... What on earth possessed you to go along with her?”

“Well...” Shinji hadn't really meant to piss her off _again._ He'd hoped that this might be an opportunity to win her affections or at least appreciate that she'd apparently trusted him to help her. But that now speculative thought did little to stop that sobering feeling spreading through his chest.

“She never really asked me.”, he answered, not technically lying but concealing his disappointment.

It was really unfortunate that his friends and Asuka didn't get along – not that he could blame them, given how she tended to treat them.

Even now, Touji seemed relieved at his words: “So that's how it is!” He laughed. “We get it. That egomaniacal Barbie only ever hears what she _wants_ to hear.

Kensuke agreed: “And here I was getting worried that it might be something worse. Just a misunderstanding I see. Sorry bud.”

Even Nagato didn't seem to inclined to defend her today: “We all know that Shikinami-san can be rather... dominant at times.”

A misunderstanding then. Hm.

Perhaps that all it was – she always expected him to pretty much read her mind and to mystically anticipate her every whim, but she wouldn't make the tiniest compromise for his sake.

Sometimes it would seem like she almost accepted him, and the next moment, she'd act like she couldn't stand the sight of him – If she thought she was so much better than him, why couldn't she just leave him in peace? It wasn't like he didn't welcome the thought of hanging out with her more, but the least she could do was to give him the tiniest, faintest indication that she actually liked him, or at least didn't simply hate him.

He could really use it.

“So, anyways, what was that about the project?”

 

\---

 

Kensuke's Masterplan ended up taking the 'idiot quartett' to the local music hall: “If I remember correctly, Touji , you once took guitar lessons back in gradeschool, and Nagato told me quite recently I might add, that he plays the keyboard. As for me, I suppose I'd take care of the drumset and all the editing and computer stuff.

Once we're done recording I'll tweak the mix and add some synths so that we can sell people some CDs or load it onto their data sticks.

I don't think that we can come up with more than one song in this short time, but we could throw in a couple of covers, and if we add a few remixes we might be able to fill an EP.”

“Guitar...? CD? You mean we're going to perform as a band?”

“Exactly!” Kensuke confirmed.

“But... I'm not really all that musical...”  
“Didn't you tell me that you play the Cello?” Nagato interjected. “I thought the two of us resolved that we would endeavor to be a little more confident in the future.”

“But... I'm not very good at it... and a Cello doesn't really fit into a garage band...”

Kensuke, however, was quick to contradict him: “Hogwash! If anything that gives us more memorability points.”

“And besides, I don't think _any_ of us are virtuosos.” said Touji, appearing fairly laid-back about the risk of public embarrassment. “It's a school festival not a talent show. In the end we're just doing this for fun!”

“So you really think it would be alright? I don't want to spoil everything for everyone by hitting the wrong note or anything...”

“Meh. You can give us a demonstration play and we'll see what we can do for it. But that's for later, right now we have a much more urgent issue to take care of.”

“And that would be?” asked Touji, not too worried by his bespectacled friend's conspiratory demeanor.

“We need to have a girl. Else we risk looking like one of those late 90s teenage synthpop boybands...”

“There are plenty of _manly_ all-guy bands.” Touji insisted. “In the worst case we'll just get a louder guitar.”

But Kensuke didn't seem convinced: “Let's face it. We don't exactly have the right ingredients for a hard rock band, and besides, the number of our potential fans will double if we had a cute girl on stage.”

“Well, none of us are cute girls.”

“Which is exactly why we have to get one!”

Nagato considered to remind him that one couldn't just 'get' girls as if one were buying a bag of rice, but he decided that it wasn't worth the trouble.

“Get one? And where would we find one? They don't exactly grow on trees in case you haven't noticed.”

“That's where Shinji comes in.”

“Me?”

“Yes, you!” Kensuke repeated. “You're the one who's popular with the ladies!”

“Am I?”

“Sure you are!” Touji insisted. “Don't think we didn't see the babe you brought with you this morning!”

“It's not like that...”

“Come on, you've got to know one or two chicks that might be willing to be our singer if you used some of your charme on them.”

Shinji didn't know what in the world convinced the two of them that he even _had_ such a thing as 'charme', still, he meekly considered who could be eligible for the part. “So you want a pretty girl to sing in our band...”

His first thought would have been Asuka, who was universally accepted to be attractive by most of the male student body, but for obvious reasons, she was not an option.

“It's a shame that Ayanami isn't here. I feel pretty bad about her being stuck at headquarters while Shikinami and I get to have fun doing school projects...”

“Don't bat yourself up about it.” Touji advised. “I doubt she's very upset about the school festival thing, I never got the impression that she's into that sort of stuff. Last year she didn't even attend.”

“Maybe she was sick that day, or maybe she was busy at NERV, just like today.”

“In any case, she can't sing in our band if she's not here. Got any other ideas? How about your new ladyfriend from this morning? She was pretty cute. “

“Yamagishi-san?” Shinji considered for a bit, but ultimately seemed to reach a definite conclusion. “You know what? That's not a bad idea...”

 

 

\----

 

“Me?”

Much like Shinji had suspected, they had found Mayumi in the library.

“Yes, please!” Touji implored.

“Very much so!” Kensuke continued. “With you as our lead singer, our project will be saved!”

Mayumi wasn't sure what to make of the two loud boys who proceeded to bow to her in an exaggerated fashion.

A third, more subdued fellow was standing off to the side, and next to him was... _that_ boy.

“But... I'm sure there's many girls here you can ask that would be better suited for this. I'm not even cute.”

“ _Shinji!_ That's you cue!”

The Third Child swallowed nervously. “But, uh, we've decided that we'd like to have you on our band! And that's not true at all, about you not being cute...”

“Do you really think so?”

“Yes! I do!” he assured her.

Sure, he could have been lying, but he _had_ been looking at her that other time.

“Uh, Thanks, but... I'm not sure if I have the courage to sing in front of so many people... and I might not be any good at it...”

“This isn't about being good. “ Shinji replied. “The point of this whole... school festival thing is to have fun and enjoy ones' youth while it lasts. We're not trying to be superstars. You should have more confidence in yourself.”

Yeah... it did feel good to share the unbelievable mercy he had been given. It was almost enough to convince him that he deserved it.

“Well, I suppose I can... give it a try?”

Touji's rejoicing was imminent: “Does this mean you're in? YAY!”

“Thanks for your time, Yamagishi-san.” - that was Nagato, who probably felt obliged to contribute something more civilized and/or reassuring, but nonetheless wore a thin smile as he watched the EVA pilot explain the details of their plan to their newest band member.

By the look of it, Shinji had been taking his advice to heart – still, Nagato found it hard to believe that he could be so oblivious of the light that surrounded him.

The Third Child may have been reserved and often full of doubt, but beyond that, he was a pretty accepting guy in his own way, and his circle of friends reflected that.

 

\----

 

Pulling her legs close and placing the small of her feet on the seat across from her own, Asuka managed to fill two benches of the bus all by herself.

She did it because she was worth it.

The bus was otherwise tightly packed, but who cares how old, frail, pregnant or exhausted from work any of them were, she was _different_ from this whole lot. And besides, the last thing she wanted right now was for some creep to sit down beside her and restrict the movement of her elbows as she was furiously pressing the buttons on her handheld console.

Keeping her gaze low and trying her best to tune out whatever annoying irrelevant conversations were taking place on this bus, she channeled her urge to physically disrespect the Third Child's face into vanquishing her virtual enemies.

Who did he think he was...?

Who did he think he was, that he could simply forget about her like that?

 

\---

 

Since she was to be ready for departure at all times, Rei had not taken off her plug suit for as much as a single moment, not even now, as she waited in a modestly sized, windowless room, sitting atop the bed which, aside from a heavy, wooden bookshelf and a desk of similar make, was among its only furnishments, reading a thick book by the dim caramel light of a reading lamp.

Next to her, atop the deep crimson bedsheets, there was an entire pile of such books, thick, finely-printed scientific volumes that she'd brought to occupy her time while she remained here.

Apart from them, she's brought a pillbox filled with her usual medications, a spare uniform and a certain little case containing a pair of broken eyeglasses, and nothing else.

Now one could have been inclined to mistake her current location for whatever quarters had been assigned to her for the duration of the current situation, but this was not the case – in truth, this room, hidden deep within the bowels of NERV HQ, served a wholly different purpose.

She was aware that Commander Ikari owned a mansion on the surface, but he rarely found the time to return there, often resorting to this simple, spartan chamber whenever he needed to provide his body with a modicum of sleep.

This was also the place to which he summoned those with whom he wished to converse in private, insofar as a person like him could even be said to have a 'private' life - These days, he only ever seemed to set foot on the surface when he was leaving for yet another business trip.

At times, he had also summoned Akagi here when she seemed to be tiring of getting her fix in his office, though she was the only one involved who would have seen these meetings as personal in nature – As far as he was concerned, it was yet another aspect of his work toward the great purpose, perhaps one that was a little more unsavory than the average, but not by much, and not anywhere near the worst things he had done.

Today, he had instructed Rei to await him here, and that was exactly what she had done. Since the need for her to be ready for deployment at all times forbade lengthy experiments, she hadn't had much else to do for today, aside from a few routine Checkups with Dr. Akagi – by now, she had finished the books she'd brought with her and was only thumbing through this one's pages in order to revisit a few paragraphs that had caught her attention.

She did not mind waiting here, as it didn't really represent too much of a break whom what she usually did. Whether it was here or elsewhere, her days would be spent executing her assigned orders and then waiting until she would be needed again.

The only significant difference to her usual routine, insofar as she would have registered one, was that she couldn't converse with the Third Child, though her presence here meant that she was set to spend somewhat more time with the Commander – For example, it was not usual for him to summon her to his breakfast table.

And there he was, speak of the devil.

He stepped through the door and scanned her with a quick glance.

Almost immediately, her features softened into a smile, and his own, too, lost some on their usual saturnine expression.

He inquired as to how she was faring, if she was adjusting to the situation, and how her last checkup had turned out.

She asked about his own welfare.

His answer was brief and noncommittal.

It was customary for her to answer just a briefly and unusual for her to ask such questions of her own, so he wanted to know about the reason for her query.

She stated that she had wanted to know... and that the Third Child frequently quizzed her about the matter.

Silence.

He decided to question her about the current state of the plan – that is, for the parts of it that pertained to how things were going between the two children.

Rei didn't really seem to know what she was expected to answer to that, but noted that the boy in question had sought her out before the experiment on the day before.

The Commander informed her already knew.

She asked whether the current state of things represented a problem.

He denied it.

Then, his gaze shifted to the books and he asked to know how far ahead she was, to which she replied that she had them all finished.

He thought this good and stated as much.

It shouldn't have been surprising, if one considered that just about anything that NERV dealt with today, including the works of those ever-annoying women, was, in one way or another, built upon the genius of a certain woman – and if one considered the... connection between her and Rei... well, again, it wasn't surprising, that the girl had potential.

He found it as promising as he found it heartbreaking.

He asked Rei if there were any portions of the text that she still had problems with, or questions about.

He never went as far as to sit down beside her – for if he ever did that, he would have been lost for good.

Instead, he remained in a relative vicinity and instructed her to pass him the book whenever there was a need for him to see it.

She was reaching an advanced level of understanding – most of her questions had more to do with wanting more detailed explanations and further information in order to comprehend something to her satisfaction than they did with any true difficulties in understanding the texts.

He told her to place the books back onto the bookcase and reached for one that was somewhat dusty because he usually avoided taking out of the shelf – Yet, he couldn't have thrown it out along with everything else because he still needed it as reference material.

“Read this.” he told her. “You should be able to make sense of it by now.”

“Yes, Sir.”

She received the rather thick, black tome and examined its title: 'About the new possibilities in the field of metaphysical biology – by Yui Ikari.'.

“Is there a connection?” the girl asked in a barely discernible tone of mild surprise.

He did not look at her as he answered.

“Not in any manner that would be relevant to you.”

“I see.”

“You may go now.”

 

\---

 

“Uh, that was...”

“Absolutely perfect!”

Shinji didn't even get a chance to properly begin his sentence before Touji preempted him with a very clear verdict – While he may have had his initial doubts about the efficiency of recruiting a female band member, Mayumi's little musical demonstration had soon reversed his opinion to a point where he half-seriously lamented that Shinji had seen her first.

The others weren't exactly regretting the new addiction, either: “She's got quite the voice, doesn't she?”

“Impressive indeed.” thought Nagato, who honored the bespectacled girls with a few motions of subdued applause. “We're lucky to have found you, Yamagishi-san.”

Shinji agreed: “I'm honestly surprised that you're _this_ good. You might have discovered a new talent there.”

“I don't know... I mean, thank you guys for saying all that but I'm not sure if this is good enough for me to sing in front of so many people...”

“Sure it is!” Touji insisted as he got to work on some of the electronics. “That is, if I get this mike working. Darn those tangled cables!”

“Careful Touji! That's not the speaker but the amplifier for your guitar. Don't break the socket.”

“Sorry. I'll be sure to keep that in mind...”

 

“Are we experiencing technical difficulties?”

All five of them were rather astonished when a tall man with long hair and guitar case on his back stepped into the room like a superhero summoned by a signal light.

Shinji was the only one to recognize his face, though it took him a while to put him into context now that he was wearing a white T-shirt and a short black vest instead of the NERV uniform the Third Child was used to seeing him in.

“Aoba-san! What brings _you_ here?”

“Let's just say that a little Birdie told me. Which basically means that Captain Katsuragi asked the security people if you were doing anything for the school festival, and then sent me to help you with all the sound engineering and guitar stuff.

Consider it a sort of 'reimbursement' for taking up your practice time with yesterday's battle.”

“How sad a world would this be without Misato-san's generosity~”

Kensuke was inclined to a agree: “If we have this cool guitar dude on our side, our show _has_ to be a success!”

“But wasn't Touji supposed to be the one playing the guitar?”

“Consider yourself my apprentice, kid.”

“I feel honored.” answered Touji, uncharacteristically humbled at the prospect.

Nothing left to do but to get started then.

While Aoba provided Kensuke, Nagato ans especially Touji with lots of useful tips and tricks of the music-making trade, Mayumi and Shinji (who, all things considered, was probably the most artistic of the bunch) secluded themselves in a corner of the room to whip up some song lyrics in a creative frenzy, and before long, they managed to get to the actual recording part way faster than they'd expected and were able to spend much o the available time practicing both their original song and those cover versions they had been thinking of doing.

All in all, it turned out to be an all around pleasant undertaking during which they all got to have their fun and their chances to shine.

In particular, Touji's sense of humor had made great contributions to the chill, amenable atmosphere during the event – Even Mayumi, who was a vintage shrinking violet most of the time, felt inspired to bold artistic contributions, not just through her singing, but in devising the lyrics, whose finalized version had sprung almost entirely from her pen.

Even for the more humble about them, there was plenty of positive reinforcement to be had, and though some may have been reluctant to truly believe it, they all certainly enjoyed it.

There were even moments where some of them were genuinely impressed with what they never knew they could do.

It was only after they'd successfully cobbled together some halfway acceptable sound and recorded their 'dress rehearsal' as the designated CD version when they realized that their efforts had eaten up most of the afternoon

Kensuke remained behind with Aoba, who'd volunteered to help him with the sound editing software, Nagato, by contrast, excused himself quickly out of a desire not to worry his father who was bound to be coming home sooner rather than later.

The remaining three could afford to take their sweet time in strolling out of the building and take the time for a little causal conversation, until Touji bode them farewell and, perhaps quite deliberately, left the last two all to themselves as they stood in the warm light of the early evening, their eyes unavoidably drawn to each other.

“I just wanted to say... thank you. Thank you for everything. It really meant a lot to me.”

“Same here. Thank you for participating. It was important to me that you wouldn't be left all alone, because I know what that's like.”

“Thanks again. For everything.”

And then she left, unwilling to expose her face any longer – she felt the warmth under her cheek announcing what no doubt must have been a far too obvious redness that she wouldn't be comfortable showing, not when she couldn't be sure that he felt the same.

Shinji stood there or a while, looking after her as she walked away, but once he did move, it didn't take him long to break into a hurried jog – It occurred to him that there was one more thing he could do, if he should manage to reach the next supermarket before all the shops closed up.

He'd been to the pinboard next to the staff room in order to write their project into the corresponding list, and, knowing Asuka, she'd probably done this sometime _after_ their altercation, but she really _had_ registered for the baking project, and all things considered he regretted that their argument had turned out the way it did.

 

\---

 

“Inspektor Kaji, you are one of my superiors in this organization, do you really think this is appropriate?”

“Appropriate?” he tried to go for the cheeky methods an places his hands on the railing that the woman before him was leaning on, leaning in towards her but not yet touching her.

“Of course it wouldn't be appropriate, but who really cares what about that? All's fair in love and war.”

“If you remove your arms right now, we can agree that this never happened.”

Realizing that her disinterest was very much genuine, he did just that in this very instant, backing out of her space with a quiet, understated apology.

Once he did that, she continued along the path as if nothing happened, without even saying a word.

 

“Tough luck eh?”

“Mitsurugi! How long have you been here?”

“Probably longer than you'd like. So you're interested in Asahina?”

“Not really. My actual target is the lady down there.” he announced, motioning a casual wave downwards past the railing adjacent to the two men, where a pair of women could be seen discussing something in the lower level – One of them was Dr. Akagi, and the other was, of course, Misato.

“I was wondering if she'd get jealous.”

“Which of them?”

“On the right.”

“You mean Captain Katsuragi? I don't know, she seems kind of unapproachable and utilitarian, like she's the workaholic type...”

“Nothing could be further from the truth. She's more of a 'work hard, play hard' sort of person once you get to know her. Weren't you the one who told me not to waste any chances if it was the right person? Even so, it's always a bit aggrieving to have one's advances rejected, even if they weren't too serious...”

“I can't deny that. Actually, I've tried m luck with her as well – Asahina, that is – but she wasn't very receptive either. I suppose she's not interested in a relationship right now...”

“What, you, Mitsurugi? After all your talks about 'The One'?”

“It's true that I still miss Kikyou, but my wife is gone and she's not coming back. Please don't get the wrong impression, it's not so much about the carnal pleasures, but I do get lonely, and that was even more true when I was stationed up in the arctic.

Besides, I have a son and he's been without a mother figure in his life for so long. So I started seeing this woman who worked at Bethany base. We spent many nice evenings together and she was practically my girlfriend, but then, she ended the relationship out of the blue and disappeared soon after. The word was that she had been transferred, but no one knew where.

So, I get altogether tired of the arctic and request a transfer myself. Best thing I ever did, considering that Bethany Base ended up blowing up just a few weeks after I left. You were there when it happened, weren't you?”

“Yeah, I was, I was sent there on a few transitory assignments while I was officially stationed in Germany. “

From his experience as an investigator, Kaji recognized this as one of those moments where, when you listened to people in a sufficiently friendly manner, they might _tell_ you things. “So, she just disappeared off the face of the earth and you never saw her again?”

“Well, that's the thing. Around the same time as I transferred in, Asahina-san was given a high-ranking post in the security division. So I meet this woman, and she looks _identical_ to my ex-girlfriend. She's wearing her hair differently, but it's definitely the same woman, or at least, she looks like her.

I tried to talk to her, but she acted like she'd never seen me before and certainly wasn't interested in going out for a drink.

I realize how this sounds, believe me, I'm not enough of a crazy stalker to badger someone who's not interested in me, I have a son to raise for pete's sake, and even with my ex-girlfriend I was never really that sure how seriously _she_ took it all, especially since she broke it off like that. I've stayed out of her hair ever since, but I can't get over how they look exactly the same.

My memory might just be playing tricks on me, though. Maybe this is just me wanting some closure...” Mitsurugi sighed. “In any case, I need to be going. My son must be waiting for his dinner.”

“See you around.”

At first, Mitsurugi made a convincing show of leaving, but just five steps further, he stopped in his track and turned back to face Kaji.

“Tell me, Kaji-san... What's your opinion of Commander Ikari?”

“That's not an easy question. I'm still undecided on a lot of things concerning this whole undertaking. He seems like a man hellbent on accomplishing his goals.”

“I don't doubt that, but don't you think...”

“Are you going to ask me if I think he's insane?”

“Insane? Nah. I've got not quarrel with insanity, we're all a little mad these days and so is this whole wide world. But sometimes, I find myself doubting if he's even human.

It turns out my boy has made friends with the Third Child. That poor, abandoned, forgotten child. It's a crying shame if you ask me. I know you're not a father, but as a man, you should understand to land your first into the face of the man responsible...

The fact that an organization like NERV is being led by a person like him worries me deeply...”

 

\---

 

By the time Shinji made it home, the sunset was in full bloom and generously spilled its golden-orange light across building's facade.

Loaded with shopping bags, it took him some effort to get past all the doors involved in getting to his particular apartment, but thanks to a few balancing acts and creative uses of his elbows he ultimately succeeded in negotiating them.

He found Asuka in the living room, sitting on on the couch, quiet, downcast and as close to outright sulking as he could picture her being capable of.

She was playing with her hand-held game console, and though this activity may at first have been intended to vent her anger at some virtual pixel creatures, the flames of her fury had long since faded by the time that Shinji arrived, leaving behind the cool ashes of listless disinterest – Even the sounds and lights coming out of her device no longer really engaged her, except as a distraction from the tarry mass of raven thoughts congealing at the back of her mind – which still left her so distracted from her surroundings that she didn't notice the sounds of her roommate's return, and for a while, he did nothing to change this, reluctant to start a conversation after they'd parted in anger.

Eventually, he managed to scrape together the courage to address her, though it may have taken him a while – He'd realized that there was no point in expecting _her_ to break the silence.

“Shikinami-san?”

Her glare resembled an omen of impending doom for as long as it took her to recognize the shopping bags in his hands. Then, however, her face morphed into a genuine unconcealed expression of surprise unlike any he'd ever associated with her face.

The bags themselves were filled to the brim with baking ingredients: Flour, Sugar, baking paper, chocolate overglaze, syrup, marzipan decorations, sugar pearls, cookie cutters, fruit for cake stuffing and last but not least a couple of huge plastic containers for airtight storage and easy transport.

“You wanted me to help with your project, didn't you? I mean, I get it if you're mad and don't want me to-”

“Of course I'm angry, you dunce!” she retorted, back to her usual energy. “So get yor backside into the kitchen so we can get started, it's already getting late!”

 

\----

 

“Shikinami-san... Be careful with the knife, if you keep holding it like this-”

“Cut it out. I get that _you_ may be stupid enough to need an instruction manual about how to use something as simple as a knife, but you shouldn't make assumptions about others- OUCH!”

“I'm terribly sorry! Let's me see for a bit....”

“Don't freak out on me now. I'm hardly going to die from such a small cut. Don't act as if I'd accidentally hacked off my finger or something.”

“But what if it gets infected!” the Third Child replied, all the way from the bathroom where he was now engaged in a nigh-panicked search for the package of waterproof bandaids he believed to have seen here once upon a time. “Besides, it's hardly hygienic for you to keep working at this without covering it up. You know, because, germs and stuff. We should probably wash it with water, too...”

Asuka signed.

Fine. She'd stand still and let him fuss over her if he so insisted.

Knowing that little pervert, his rambles about germs were probably just an excuse to not only touch her hands, but hold them under running water to boot.

Held in his, her own hand felt uncomfortably small and clumsy as he briefly sprayed her with something that may have been a disinfectant or a modern version of an ointment (not without dutifully warning her that it might sting) and the carefully wrapped a band aid around her nicked finger.

She wasn't _supposed_ to feel all mushy from having someone taking care of her, she didn't need to. She was very much capable of taking care of herself and what did it matter if he decided to be nice to her, or actually thought of her even if it meant doubling his school project related workload?

There was no place for such sentimentality in the hard, competitive world she lived in.

But enough of that – it wasn't as if she'd shown this weakness in front of a _serious_ rival – Sure, considering that he'd gotten his EVA through nepotism, his achievements were not to be underestimated, but the very idea that he would ever measure up to her was a total joke.

“Why were you even cutting up this cheese?” he then asked once he was done with her finger.

“Are you an idiot? Obviously for that cheesecake we're supposed to be making!”

Okay, that was a little extreme. All the way throughout their baking efforts he'd very much begun to suspect that she had very little experience with baking or cooking, but he didn't think that it would be _this_ bad.

He'd have to let her down gently...

“Mh, you know, it might be _called_ a 'cheesecake', but in reality, there's no actual cheese in it, except curd cheese if you count that.”

“This makes no sense!”

“Says the person who signed up for a baking project when she doesn't know the first thin about baking!”

“Well, how was I to know that you'd pick today or all days to discover your musical talent! You're an _excellent_ chef and believe me, I would know! Believe me, the difference was quite clear when you decided to stay out with your buddy’s the other day and left me to eat Misato's barely edible junk!” she spat this out as if it were a kind of insult, but upon closer inspection, it was a real honest compliment – If not more.

Had she just admitted to actually _relying_ on him?

Or did she simply see him as a kind of property that she was entitled to push around whenever she felt like it?

He didn't really want to ask, for fear that her answer might heavily imply the latter, but her comments concerning his culinary skills had been considerably less ambiguous.

“Do you really mean that?”

“Don't let it go to your head. It's still not exactly the manliest of talents, or the most essential of skills. The _Elite-_ ” and as she said that word, her right arm made a pompous gesture toward her own chest. “- has no need to do menial things like these. Excellent people can afford to have others cook for _them,_ people like you, for example.”

Shinji decided to take this with a smile, though he couldn't help the pendulum swing of melancholy that inevitably seemed to follow it.

“Well, I suppose no one would blame you for the cooking thing, _most_ people at our age can't really do it yet. When you think about it, it isn't necessarily a bad thing, it only means that you didn't _have to_ learn it, because your parents always looked after you. If I'm honest, it almost makes me a little envious...”

“My Parents-? What the hell are you talked about?”

“Your mom? I think you mentioned her? I-I'm not sure, I get that something like missing your parents is a bit too 'un-glamorous' for you, but...”

“Nonsense! I have no idea where you got that idea from, but I haven't been living with my parents since I was, like, five years old!”

“...Eh? How come?”

“Well obviously, because of the Evangelion Program, you idiot! I think I _mentioned_ the part where I've been training ever since I was little? Unlike you, for example.”

This hit Shinji rather bluntly now, and with little preparation – it wouldn't fit into the mental image that he had of her, nor did it seem to match the self-assured, dauntless and seldom truly distressed manner in which he saw her barge through life day in, day out.

It didn't even match the casual, nonchalant tone she was describing it, and yet, he thought he felt anger rising through his being, and an urge to defend her in spite of all their differences and mutual misgivings:

“So they just... handed you over?” She didn't even seem to grasp why he suddenly seemed so shaken, or why he struggled to string his words into sentences: “Did they just give you away because the people from NERV came to your doorstep and asked? Even if they needed you to save all of humanity, this sounds cruel. Why didn't they at least-”

“Hold your horses, Daddy's boy!”

Asuka pointed her outstretched arm and index finger at him, and laughed.

“You're an A-grade drama queen, do you know that? There's no need to turn everything into a soap opera!” she retorted, confusing him completely. “They asked _me_ , and it was _my_ decision, no one else's. _I_ decided that I would be devoting myself completely to my training and education as a pilot.”

“Maybe they did, but, how can a five year old be expected to decided such a thing?”

“I wasn't just some _five year old_!” Asuka clarified, as if his words has been meant to criticize or even insult her. “I was _me._ My father and my stepmother were the ones who kept insisting that I was still a child, some bullshit about me not having 'enough free time', or, that too much was being expected of me while neglecting my 'emotional development', and complaining how I should see kids my age for 'social experience'; They were almost as bad as Misato with all that talk about how I had a 'right to a normal life'. Bah!”

She said all of this with the utmost scoff, as if it were the most absurd thing she had ever heard.

But she'd said 'stepmother', which painfully reminded Shinji of Nagato's suspicions.

“A 'normal life' is something for _normal_ people. It's right there in the name. It has nothing to do with me. If anything, it's for people like you or my parents. You lot may be able to afford such privileges, but I'm _different_ from you!”

Yeah, there could be no doubt about it – He would have given almost everything for his father's attention, but _she_ seemed to have left her parents of her own free will.

“I'm not like you, or them, or anybody else here. But they didn't get it. Everyone at NERV could see it, my tutors, the researchers, but not Misato, no matter how she acted on the surface, she always saw me as a child. I'm _not_ a normal child. I'm a lot more mature than others at my age, I don't _need_ anyone to fuss over me, and I certainly don't need to be with other kids!

They wouldn't even understand me, I mean, you're the best proof of that.

I mean, it wasn't as bad as it could have been, at least my parents understood that I had to be at NERV, but even they kept calling me and making me visit them, as 'moral support', or so they said. Once in a while, they'd just hijack one of my weekends, or sometimes an entire week, and they would keep buying me toys and dragging me to all this kiddie stuff, dysney movies, the zoo, the circus, you name it!

You wouldn't believe how annoying that was! Well, ever since my old man kicked the bucket, I just have to deal with the occasional phone call from my snotty, pretentious stepmom...”

The sheer indifference with which she spoke about her parents was startling.

Shinji had seen her talk to her folks on the phone and it always seemed like they got along well enough, but now it seemed as if she didn't even like them very much, and she didn't seem much fonder of Misato, even though they cheerfully interacted in day to day life with seeming fondness, but as he heard her speak now with cold, sober eyes, it seemed like those bonds were no more special to her than the superficial friendships with the disposable flock of girls she'd surround herself with at school and just for a moment, he was tempted to wonder if there was anyone left in this whole world whom she saw as anything other than a bothersome annoyance or a practical obstacle.

(But that's how it was.

As far as she was concerned, both her parents had been gone for a long, long time.

By the time her father had passed away, the emotional bond between them had been long since severed, and for her stepmother, she'd never been let inside her heart in the first place.

Inside, she'd walled herself off many years ago, so she'd felt barely more than a little pinprick.

Or at least, that's what she'd made herself believe in order to live up to the standards she had set for herself.)

“You can probably imagine that yours truly had way ore important stuff to do than to pick up a cookbook. I mean, if I'd wanted to, I could have taken my stepmother up on the half-hearted offer she made that one day, but that would have been a waste of my time, especially since she picked the day before a big activation experiment to ask me. And she didn't even come to watch, can you believe it? Not that I'd want her to, but, the thing is, she probably didn't even realize how it was any different from my usual synchronization tests.”

She laughed. “You know, I was _born_ like this. I wouldn't agree with that cheesy adage about how it's 'lonely at the top', but sometimes it can be frustrating that there's almost no one of my own level around. It's like being surrounded by goldfish! None of you normal people _ever_ understands!”

She sighed. “For example, look at us EVA pilots. You and the First got a little lucky and had some useful connections, and so you got to be pilots. With a little practice, you even got pretty good, and I'll admit that you surprised me there a few times, but even so you're still _miles_ from my level.

What I'm trying to say is, that even though effort pays off, there's a fundamental difference between you and I.”

She made a further, pompous gesture which surprisingly ended in a sigh and then, changed into a smile. “...nevermind. I suppose that, as another EVA pilot, you are the closest thing to an equal that I can currently get my hands on. And your being able to cook turned out pretty useful.

You know what? Since you didn't forget our project altogether, I'll be lenient with you and forgive you about this morning, or the one before. I'm feeling merciful towards you because of that time you fished me out of a volcano.

So then, let's get to work! I'm not really that crazy about cheesecake anyways, and certainly not after what happened. Don't you have some better recipe?”

“I guess we could go with something else...” he began as he looked through the pile of printed-out recipes he'd found online. “How about Black Forest Cake? Just in case you get homesick after all.”

“Where'd you get the idea that I'm from the Black Forest?”

“That's in Germany, isn't it?”

“Yeah sure, but did it ever occur to you that Germany has more than one patch of trees in it? Then again, considering how many people you've got stashed away on these tiny overcrowded islands here...”

Strange Feeling.

Asuka had spent this whole conversation talking about how they were supposed to be all different from each other, but in the end, the Third Child felt as if she'd come a tiny bit closer to being within his reach – perhaps because she'd said that he was the closest thing she had to an equal right now, or perhaps rather because it was somehow... conforting... to learn that this whole 'trained since childhood' deal came with its own share of drawbacks for example, that she'd never found the time to do such a simple, ordinary thing like baking cookies or cakes.

But it also made him think.

All this talk about a 'normal life' and how she 'couldn't afford this privilege', unlike him. What privilege? Looking back at his upbringing, it would never have occurred to him to describe himself as 'privileged' in any way, except perhaps in the strictly economic sense. All of his life, he'd only seen the things he didn't have while others _did:_ Friends, Family and a purpose to justify their being in this world.

His life had not exactly been 'normal', but as he considered it, this mainly had to do with his being himself. A different, stronger person may have managed to build a less than merely superficial bond with his teacher and made friends with the other kids in the village – a chance that had gone to waste because he happened to be his cowardly, unlikeable self, but, at the same time, a chance that couldn't be taken for granted:

If Asuka, the _Second_ Child, had endered the program at the tender age of five, it seemed to follow, just by logic, that Rei had been recruited as a mere toddler. In her case, he didn't even have the faintest idea what happened to her parents, and all things considered, it wouldn't be surprised if she didn't either.

She didn't have a single picture of them in her apartment; The only thing resembling a memento had belonged to his father. But whatever her story may have been (he didn't have the courage to as about details), it didn't seem like _she_ had ever gotten such a chance at a regular, carefree childhood

– and in hindsight, that would seem to explain the soldier-like attitude she displayed at times, her penchant of talking about 'orders' and accepting the dreadful things she was made to endure as simple parts of her workload.

Asuka _did_ have that chance, but she'd given it away, traded it in for the burdens of an EVA pilot before she was old enough to understand the full weight of what she was giving up – Even now, she barely seemed to have any concept or awareness of what she had lost, but that was because she had a warrior's heart;

It wasn't easy to notice when she'd shown up looking him, leaving him to gaze up at her from far beneath, as if she were some omnipotent, capricious goddess with no capacity for hesitation or fear, but the closer he'd come to being able to look her in the eye as a comrade, the more he recognized them as the eyes of a lone fighter, a human being much like himself – Was this not a first for her as much as for him, in all of its unfamiliar normalcy and everyday madness? Had she not come to a foreign land on her own to find her first real friends here? Was she not also inexperienced in things that almost everyone else took for granted?

It was just that their respective inexperience showed itself in different areas, because he'd been lucky enough to experience some things that neither she nor Ayanami had ever known in their lives, or at least, he'd received the opportunity;

And that made him think.

Until now, he'd had no doubt that his father had sent him away because he didn't want him. There had never been alternative – his endless broodings had circled around whatever reason there may have been for that, and the resulting feelings of rejection, abandonment and unwantedness, but not so much about the circumstances of their parting itself. They'd always seemed synonymous. But now, this fundamental axiom of his thought was coming into question.

He thought of Nagato's father, who evidently loved his son, but still had considered to send him to a boarding school, for completely different reasons. He too had spoken about the prospects of a 'normal life'.

He also thought of his arrival here in Tokyo-3, and how he'd only been summoned because Rei happened to be injured at the time of the Fourth Angel's arrival. NERV needed pilots so badly that they couldn't let him go once his talent had been uncovered, but what if Rei had never been involved in that accident at all? What if he'd never been called to Neo Tokyo-3 and no one, himself included, would ever have found out that he possessed this rare ability?

He could have lived in peace, without ever hearing the word 'Evangelion'!

Could it be that his father had once stood at that same crossroads and chosen the same path that the elder Mitsurugi had ended up rejecting?

Could it be that he'd only been sent away so that he could have a normal life, far way from the project?

Perhaps, he only treated Rei more nicely so differently in order to make it up to her, because he felt bad that he _couldn't_ afford her that same privilege...-

No. Nonsense.

This was just him hearing what he _wanted_ to hear. If it were like that, his father would have started spending more time with him once he'd been forced to become a pilot as well and that had not happened.

The simplest, clearest, most apparent explanation was still that his father flat out didn't care.

 

“Hey! Quit spacing out! The cake needs to be done by tomorrow!”

Called back into the present by Asuka's complaints, Shinji adjourned his musings until further notice: “Alright, I give up. Let's get this over with.”

 

After some time, they succeeded in filling all available plastic storage boxes with cakes, tarts and cookies. It was a fortunate that their oven was spacious enough. Granted, there were a few portions of dough that ended up in the garbage chute for various reasons, but Asuka learned fast and had a vested interest in proving herself useful, and after all, it wasn't like she was too stupid to use a rolling pin or cookie cutter.

They succeeded in procuring a sizable pile of pastries which they stacked on top of the dining table lest they forget to take it with them the next morning.

Expectedly, Asuka left him no words of thanks when she retreated to her room, but being allowed to serve as a sort of confidant for her was reward enough for him not to mind that terribly much.

Even so, he couldn't help but sneak a contemplative gaze out of the window: By now, even the last glimmers of the sunset had finally faded, and after working on not one, but _two_ school projects, he found himself in a fashionably matching state of content exhaustion, but in between all those musings about the value of a 'normal life', he'd come to realize that there was at least _one_ more thing he ought to do today...

 

\----

 

 

“Just as I thought...”

After two hours of typing and code-breaking, Kaji arrived at a definite conclusion: Until she was transferred to NERV headquarters soon after the Fourth Angel's attack, the woman called Asahina Najiko had simply not existed.

There was absolutely nothing that would constitute unambiguous proof of her presence anywhere on this world: No group photos, no records of either reprimands or commendations for exceptional achievements, not data about her schooling or any previous employers one could have phoned for confirmation – and the same was true for that 'Ueda Nadesha' person Mitsurugi had described: It was as if she'd come into existence to work at Bethany base, and then vanished back into the void when her time here was over – and her profile pictures spoke a clear language, it was, without a doubt, the same woman.

And Bethania Base wasn't the only place she'd been to, after some further digging, he found mentions of 'Asahina' in the databases of almost every single NERV branch, though he was by now fairly sure that this wasn't her real name.

Whoever she was, she'd worked at Massachusetts, Nevada, Berlin, Siberia, and the Chinese branch... each time under a different pseudonym. Getting data from the Golghata branch proved much more challenging but fortunately their personal files weren't as closely guarded as their project information – And it turned out that 'Asahina' had worked there, too.

The timeframes she'd spent working at each of NERV's many bases lined up neatly into a consecutive timeline with just one significant gap, a hole of two years which she might well have spent on the ever-elusive Tabgha moon base.

From this data alone it was impossible to conclude who she really was, but with NERV's rigorous security being what it is, there was no way that no one had ever meant before, which meant that it was being deliberately ignored, perhaps on orders from the very top.

Whoever she was, the people she reported to had to be very influential – And once that became clear, there could be no doubt that she was SEELE's second operative.

So, what did that mean for him and his further actions?

He doubt that the interior ministry would be very interested, they had little interest in the interior spats of the conspiracy.

Should he tell Ikari? Kaji had the feeling that he probably already knew, but this might be a way to test it, and who knew what Ikari might reveal. Or, he could play dumb and inform SEELE that he'd found a suspicious person, just to confirm his suspicious, but there was no guarantee that they would actually tell him anything.

In any case, he would need to be careful around Asahina (or whatever her real name might be) , lest she blow his cover.

He was just one man – a single, unattached man with no remaining family and an overall expendable role to the organization that was largely irrelevant for battle deployments – He had no doubt that those at the very top of the organization's pecking order could have him executed at a whim.

 

_______________

  1. The whole “orgy dream scene” at the beginning is inspired by a similar scene from “Chobits” in which the protagonist has a dream in which he is chased by all the attractive ladies in the vincinity. One shouldn't neglect the funsies.

  2. That Asuka's father has since kicked the bucket is explicitly noted in the proposal materials, though it can also be inferred from the show proper in that it's the stepmother who calls & that he already seems all gray in that one vague shot we see of him in a flashback. Of course, she's supposed to be telling a heavily lensed, filtered and sanitized version of events here, but that's as close as a normal human quasi-intimate conversation with her as Shinji gets at the moment. You must at least be a level 4 friend to unlock the rest o my tragic backstory etc.

  3. As for what part of Germany Asuka is from... personally, I headcannon her folks as suebian, mainly because the south has the most redheads. This would place Kyoko in a long & proud tradition of engineers and inventors, and allow for the cute spectacle of Asuka lapsing into a distinctive accent when she's particularly worked up. (Everyone Else: “We can do everything except speak Standard German.” Asuka: “Hold my apple spritzer. * breathes in * Zzzzzzzzzz.”)

  4. Even after this eventful day, our dear Shin-chan mentioned that there was something important he had to do. .. Find out what it is in chapter 2.12: [UNTOUCHABLE]




 

 


	31. 12: [UNTOUCHABLE]

##  ****12: [UNTOUCHABLE]** **

  
\---

 

****  
** ** **_Ich seh' Dir ins Gesicht doch spüren tu ich nichts_ **

_Denn Dein Körper ist gefroren und erstarrt_

_Ich muss schon prüfen ob Du noch am Leben bist_

_Mit kalten Händen berührst Du mich_

_Doch ich fühle nichts  
_

**_So wie ein Engel der aus Stein und Eis besteht_ **

_Meine Gefühle hinter Panzertüren_

_Nun gefangen nimmst  
_

**_Jetzt liegst Du neben mir_ **

_Doch ich fühl' mich ganz allein_

_Und Deine Schönheit blendet mich_

_(Wie ein grelles Licht)_

_Du fasst meinen Körper an, doch spüren tu ich nichts_

_Doch mein Feuer kommt über Dich_

_Und Du wehrst dich nicht  
_

**_Gib mir mein Gefühl zurück_ **

_Du bist viel zu kalt für mich_

_Gib mir mein Gefühl zurück_

_Und denk' immer daran: Ich liebe Dich!  
_

_-Welle:Erdball , ‚Gib mir mein Gefühl zurück‘_

 

_[:]_

 

_I look into your face but I don't feel anything_

_For your body is frozen and rigid_

_I do need to make sure if you're even still alive_

_With cold hands, you touch me_

_but I don't feel anything_

 

_Like an angel made of stone and ice,_

_you now take my feelings captive behind armored doors_

 

_Now you lie beside me_

_but I feel all alone_

_And your beauty blinds me_

_like a glaring light_

 

_You touch my body but I don't feel anything_

_But my fire covers you_

_and you don't resist_

 

_Give me back my feelings!_

_You are far too cold for me_

_Give me back my feelings!_

_And always remember that I love you_

 

 

 

\----

 

There was something he had to do.

After the numerous and varied errands of the day, he was convinced of that beyond all doubt, for he'd come to realize that regardless of whatever may be the case concerning his father's intentions, there was one obvious truth: He'd been able to fill this day with 'civilian activities', enjoying the afternoon with Mayumi and his friends and the evening with Asuka, and that was a very precious thing – but one he was only fortunate enough to have because someone else had gone without it:

Ayanami Rei.

While everyone else in their class had spent the day with their friends, perhaps working but nonetheless having fun, she had been stuck at headquarters, all alone and far away from all such merriment, attending to her duties before anything else, much like she'd done it all her life.

It wasn't fair that she alone should have to spend the day all by herself...

 

And so it came that he made his way to headquarters without being summoned there, now for the second time and again for the very same reasons; And when he thought of it in this context, it was hardly surprising that he and Rei hadn't grown that much closer even though he'd wanted to – So far, almost every interaction between them had taken place because external circumstances had brought them together, whether it was school, NERV or various errands like the one that once led him to her doorstep. He'd wanted to approach her almost since the first time he saw her, but so far, he hadn't really found the courage to do so.

But since he had decided that he would do what it takes to become a stronger person, this was probably a good place to start.

He didn't know how much of a difference it would make, much of the time he didn't know what to do with himself when he was around Rei, but... he at least wanted to say hello, just to let her know that someone had thought about her.

His steps were still cautious – though it was his second time doing this, he still felt like he was entering a forbidden place as he sneaked through the corridors of NERV HQ, wondering what he was even doing here.

He'd marched all the way here without plan or purpose, barely taking the time to explain his absence with a hastily written note and avoiding Asuka as he did so, telling her nothing.

In that sense it had been fortunate that she'd retired to her room right away: She didn't get along with Ayanami, and he didn't know whether he would have been capable of stating his intentions and going forward with them despite the disapproval she was almost certain to express, not to speak of lying to her or insisting that wherever he was going was none of her business.

Luck had gotten him so far, but by now it had run out – NERV HQ was an enormous building complex, and Ayanami could be pretty much _anywhere_ in the geofront.

Sure, there were a few places he could check but that wouldn't be much better than throwing a dice at each inter junction, he might even end up missing her narrowly.

He should probably ask somebody where she might be, but if he did, wouldn't he be expected to explain his presence here?

He looked around, taking in the particular corridor that his wandering steps had brought him to. If he wasn't mistaken, he should be fairly close to Dr. Akagi's office.

She would surely know where Ayanami was at the moment, and besides, though she was Misato's friend their own relationship had remained mostly at a professional level, so she was less likely to tease him about it than, say, Misato.

So yeah. He still wasn't sure if this was the smartest option, but it was a path, a direction he could follow. He just hoped that Dr. Akagi would actually be at her office, otherwise he'd be pretty lost here.

But he didn't want to think of that right now. If that should be the case... he would cross that bridge when he got to it.

His worries turned out to be unfounded: When he arrived at the office and pressed the button to open the door, he found the blonde scientist beyond it, who, conveniently enough, seemed to be on a coffee break judging by the mug in her hand.

Due to the automatic door's hissing noise, she immediately noticed his presence and glanced at him in mild surprise.

“Oh, Shinji-kun. What brings you here at a time like this? Are you looking for Misato?”

“Not really, it's just, uhm, you know how Ayanami is supposed to stay at headquarters to stand guard? In case the angel isn't really defeated?”

“Don't worry about that. If the angel shows up again, our alarm system should recognize it in time. It's enough for Rei to stay here, and even that's just a cautionary measure. You should make good use your time off and go to bed early so that you'll be well-rested tomorrow morning.”

It shouldn't have been surprising – in the end, she'd never seen that... construct as more than a test subject, or even an object: A machine created to perform a function. Machines were created in order to carry out certain tasks and make human lives easier, and thus, it seemed natural to her that the machine should do what it was made for, so that the 'real' people didn't have to bother with it. To suppose that someone might have worried about that homunculus' feelings seemed about as likely or reasonable to her as to wonder wether the coffee machine in her office might be feeling used. Dr. Akagi wasn't a sentimental person, even when it came to real people, so the boy's purpose wouldn't have occurred to her until his words revealed it:

“I know that, but, uh...” He swallowed. “I just felt I should check up on Ayanami, since she was the only one who had to stay behind-...”

So that's how it was.

Akagi had to admit, she almost had to suppress a shudder. It was more than a little unsettling to see what effect that mere lump of matter could have on men, this impossible dream with only superficial resemblance to a real woman.

Father and Son, both neatly wrapped around her little finger... Just earlier today, the Commander had canceled one of their meetings in order to 'keep her company' . She didn't even want to know what that meant.

And then, there was the strange order that he'd given her at that same time, an instruction to let his son be if he were to seek the First Child's company – supposedly, an integral component of the scenario.

Who knew what he intended to do with that construct, she didn't particularly care as long as that abomination stayed away from the one man that ought to have been her own. She hated to think what he might be doing with that pallid little flesh-automaton behind closed doors.

Donning her many masks, she proceeded to action, a veneer of professionalism with a package of superficial politeness on top, so that she would look a little more like what she'd like to be. She chased away the thoughts she didn't want and tried in vein to convince herself that there might well be more innocent explanations for everything.

 

Most likely, the boy was only feeling drawn to the outer shape of that empty shell, and even then, not in _that_ way – It might be some subliminal recognition of his mother's features that drove him to worry about it as one would for a family member; Poor, well-intentioned, misguided child. Not that she lost all too much sleep about what might happen with that hateful woman's child.

“Ah, so that's how it is.” she stated, faking an understanding smile. “Rei is down in the armory right now. I can take you there if you want, I meant to go there anyways in order to discuss something with Misato.”

“Thanks a lot, Ritsuko-san. Let us go then. To the armory, I mean.”

She took the time to empty her coffee mug before answering: “Fine.”

 

\---

 

“Oh right, you've never been down here before, have you?”

That was true. An endlessly long escalator not much unlike those seen in other areas of NERV HQ led them deeper and deeper under layers of concrete and metal, passing by countless rifles, knives and a multitude of projective- and melee weapons that were, for the most part, suspended from the ceiling in special scaffolds that were probably meant to help with getting them to the surface in a timely manner whenever they should be needed.

This entire gallery of arms was at least building- if not skyscraper-sized, and organized into multiple 'blocks' or 'stories' all around them.

To his right, he could recognize some of the axes Asuka liked to use, to his left, he'd recently passed a patched-up and modified version of the particle gun he had used against the sixth angel, prompting him to remember that they were supposed to have returned it, though he thought it wise not to voice that observation.

The journey continued, and while they had ostensibly arrived in the armory itself, there was no trace of Rei (or Misato) to be found yet, leaving Shinji to wonder how much further they would have to venture – this hall was every bit as spacious as one would expect it of an armory meant to house giant-sized weapons meant to fight a war with three gigantic biomachines, though its dimensions made it evident how far down the megastructure of NERV HQ really went.

“So...” Dr. Akagi asked suddenly, perhaps to make some use of the time spent in transit. “Would you say that you've managed to adjust to your EVA by now?”

“I guess so, yeah...”

“That's good to hear, considering that all of our survival depends on it.”

As if he needed to be reminded of that. He wasn't lying when he said he had 'adjusted', in the sense that he was no longer an obvious liability on the battlefield and capable of moving his EVA in a satisfactory manner without suffering much in terms of side effects as of recently, but that didn't change that he wasn't really cut out for this type of strains or burdens.

He supposed that he had adjusted insofar as it was possible for him, but at the same time, he didn't expect that he would ever able to shake off his instinctual fear of those war machines, and all this while he still didn't have the slightest clue what the EVAs actually were.

He'd tried not to think of it but the fleshy eye from his first sortie had burned itself rather firmly into his memories – None of them would tell him anything about it, and he didn't dare to ask – but, he had been in that very same situation since the very beginning, and right now, he found himself a a very convenient position, alone with someone who probably knew and would likely continue to remain in his vicinity while this escalator ride lasted and no one would be able to interrupt them – with both of the holding on to the escalator's conveyor-belt-like railings, he might not even have to look her in the face to make his inquiry.

He didn't seriously expect an answer, but it shouldn't have been unusual or suspicious for him to want one.

“Uhm, Ritsuko-san?” He began, nonetheless cautious but still very much pensive. “What _are_ the EVAs? I mean, what are they _really_?”

“Hm...” for a moment, she seemed to be searching for an acceptable way to put it into words. “That's a very good question. First of all, they were the only means we had to defend all that which remained of our world after second impact. Whatever else they might or may not be, whether you will fin out one day or live out your days without ever knowing.

If there is one thing you should know, then know that we had no choice but to create EVA, even if it involved staining our hands.”

“Yeah...”

That hadn't been a straightforward answer, but it wasn't like he'd felt a strong, driving need for one – ultimately, he wasn't the kind of person to insist on the truth no matter what. He couldn't stand the strife, conflict and unease that such a philosophy brought with it, and if he were to be honest, he couldn't claim in good conscience that he was terribly curious for the truth as long as there was still some equilibrium left to disturb within his own little world.

Perhaps he was simply a coward. But even so, even if he wasn't actively looking for the answers, he couldn't help but ask himself these questions, and while they weren't precisely replies, Dr. Akagi's answers were still ominous enough to fall over his thoughts like long, dark shadows of vague outline: No other choice? Even if it meant staining our hands?

What was he supposed to say to that? What was that supposed to mean?

 

\---

 

Meanwhile, our familiar trio of technicians consisting of Ibuki Maya, Hyuuga Makoto and Aoba Shigeru were dutifully overseeing the analysis and processing of all the data recorded during the last battle, so that it may be fed into the system in order to further improve its analytic and predictive capabilities – accordingly, the soundscape in Central Dogma was almost completely composed of eager typing and the occasional gulping of coffee – at least, until Lt. Ibuki hesitantly spoke up:

“There's something strange about this...”

“What is it, Maya?” Aoba inquired.

“Well, under closer scrutiny, the energy pattern of the angel's explosion doesn't match the ones we've observed with the other angels... at all.”

“But haven't the Angels so far been different from each other in many things?” Hyuuga commented. “Both the range and progression of their disintegration have proven variable.”

“Yes, but the abnormality is in the _pattern_ of the energy distribution – the same one that kept creating those pillars of light. It was always the same apart from its magnitude, in the fourth, fifth ans sixth angels – only this one is different. Sempai has been expecting something like this – It means the enemy is really still out there...”

 

\---

 

After a lengthy escalator ride, Shinji eventually arrived at his destination; Ritsuko-san had continued a little further, down onto a catwalk that was part of the titanic weapon's scaffolding and most likely intended for maintenance purposes, where Misato had been awaiting them, somewhere close to the outer walls. Shinji wondered if she'd noticed him.

As far as his own errand was concerned he'd gotten off earlier at another catwalk that hung a bit higher in the air, suspended on the 'level' just above the two women, and next to him stood the reason for his arrival, complete with her white plugsuit and a white tin helmet identical to the one he himself had been handed earlier – Down below, Misato and Ritsuko were also wearing some.

All things considered, he probably made for a rather pitiful sight – after all, he'd supposedly come all this way in order to support her. That's why he made the effort, right?

So why was it so hard to find the words now that he had finally arrived?

He couldn't even bring himself to look her in the eye – and sure, she didn't seem to mind much, but that merely increased his sense of shame; It _should_ bother her, so hiding behind the happenstance that she didn't felt like taking advantage.

He _wanted_ to turn toward her, he _did_ want to speak to her, but somehow all he ended up doing was to hang onto the railing that separated them from the plunging depht of the armory and watch as a huge rifle he may have personally emptied on the day before was being reloaded, while the thoughts and feelings he had toward this girl that stood just half a step behind him continued to burn themselves up, trapped on the inside of his being.

“I wonder what Misato-san and Ritsuko-san might be talking about...” he mused into the ether, trying his best not to ponder what he was even saying, for fear that the words might dry up in his throat, even those incidental, irrelevant sort of words.

He wanted to have said _something_ at last when he left here, something other and better than just nothing. He didn't have much reason to suspect that she would respond to that, but much to his surprise, his attempts _did_ end up sparking the beginning of a conversation, or something sufficiently like it.

He was almost a little startled when the background humming and droning of miscellaneous machine noises and distant announcements was joined by a barely audible, soft little voice, and that _did_ lead him to turn to face the First Child, not as a deliberate choice that he'd finally enforced, but as an incidental kneejerk reaction to the feeling of surprise.

“Shouldn't you be in bed? You have school tomorrow.”

Here we go again, back to her asking about _him,_ as if _he_ were the one to worry about, when there was so much reason to presume the contrary. “It's fine. I'll manage.”

“Is that so...?”

“Yeah.”

“Have you even eaten dinner?”

The way she kept thinking of everything but herself left him with a constant feeling that he was imposing on her, as if he were doing her an injustice by as much as interacting with her – whatever his intentions may have been, be they of the altruistic sort or simply a desire to make a new friend, he kept feeling like the whole interaction took place only for _his_ sake, because he'd insisted on it, not because she actually got something out of it.

“No, but-”

“You could visit the canteen.”

“Mh, I suppose I could...” he repeated, smiling nervously. “But I'm afraid I didn't bring any money.”

“That will not be an issue. I will have them put it on my tab and pay at the next opportunity.”

When the First Child decided on that sentence, she probably didn't anticipate its consequences, nor could she explain the odd symptoms that her simple request (or rather its contextual implications) would evoke in her fellow pilot.

When the color of his face began to resemble EVA 02's armor and his voice descended into helpless stammering, she was experiencing at most slight uncertainty, and while she was merely innocently wondering whether she may have done something wrong, the Third Child would have needed a far more generous helping of question marks if he were to write down his thoughts: Did she really just invite him to dinner? Was he having one of those weird dreams again? Shouldn't he be the one paying? If he let her pay, did that make him appropriately modern or just a mooch? Had he just been asked out on a date for the very first time? Did it even _count_ as a date, under these circumstances?

The NERV canteen wasn't exactly a fancy restaurant, and besides, they were just in their school uniform, or plugsuit respectively, and no one really brought any gifts... apart from the food of course.

Should he have anticipated this somehow? Was he expected to be prepared for this? And what should he say? What the devil was he even supposed to do? Would it be selfish to say 'yes'? Would she get sad if he said 'no'?

All of this way way too complicated, and it had to happen out of nowhere, so late in the evening after a long and exhausting day.... or should he have seen it coming?

After all, they had held hands before. For all he knew, Rei may have been waiting for an opportunity like this just as long as him...-

He supposed he could always _ask_ her if she intended this to be a date, but he didn't really want to experience what might follow such a question, fearing the prospect that she might find the suggestion disturbing, irritating, disgusting or otherwise unfavorable – or, even worse, that he'd get little more than an uncomprehending stare.

Perhaps he was just reading too much into it, and he was getting this worked up about about little more than a thin-skinned balloon of wishful thinking and hot hair....

When his reply came, it was hasty stammer, brought on by the sudden awareness that she was, by now, looking straight at his face with a rather direct and possibly mildly questioning look. “Thanks a lot...! But I wouldn't want to impose on you, I mean, it's your money after all...”

“Don't worry about it. I rarely use more than a fraction of my allowance. Let us go.”

 

\----

 

So it came to be that Shinji found himself seated across the first child on a table which they had all to themselves, just a few minutes after her invitation.

Admittedly, the round, white table in question was anything but small so that they were well outside the reach of each others arms, but a certain intimacy _was_ nonetheless present, given that the canteen was rather empty at this hour and that Rei had chosen a somewhat remote corner of the room to get seated – it was a quiet spot next to one of the huge panorama windows beyond which one could see the structures at the top of the geofront hanging further into its expanse like metal stalactites, bathed in the orange shine of artificial light and its illusion of eternal sunset.

Though they'd left their helmets down in the armory, Ayanami was otherwise still in full piloting gear; 'Remaining on standby' seemed to involve staying in her plugsuit and interface headset whenever possible. He wouldn't be surprised if the only times she'd taken it off in the last few days had involved visits to the ladies room, and possibly for sleeping.

All the more reason for Shinji to feel an urge to slap himself for not bringing any cash – She said that she didn't have many expenses and having seen her apparent, he didn't find it hard to believe.

Wherever she went, she only ever seemed to have the bare minimum of what she needed to have, even though the ones responsible – presumably his father – seemed to have left her enough financial resources for her to remedy that state.

So why didn't she? It didn't seem like she featured very highly on her own list of priorities. It was generally considered a good thing for a person to be humble and altruistic, but this went far beyond that...

He'd wanted, nay, almost felt _compelled_ to care about her in her stead, to look after her beyond what she thought necessary, but in the end _she_ ended up the one doing something for _him_ instead of the other way around...

There was so much that he wanted to say or do, but he didn't know how.

If this was supposed to be a date, it was certainly a rather quiet one; Perhaps, it was because none of them really knew how dates were meant to work.

But there was one glaring inconsistency that didn't fit into this picture, an obvious detail that would have jumped out at any outside observer –

Apparent as thought it was, the figurative elephant in the room resisted being stated out loud for a duration of several minutes, which Shinji mostly spent rearranging his food around his plate as he glanced out the window, distracted in deep thought.

Yet by the time he'd succeeded in moving about a fourth of his meal into his mouth in between brooding and poking at it, he resolved not to leave that grievance unresolved and donned the best of his smiles: “Say, Ayanami...”

“Yes?”

“Aren't you going to eat anything?”

The contrast _was_ a bit startling: Whereas the Third Child has a whole plastic tray in front of him which was generously provided for with a mug of tea, a plate full of glass noodles and a little salad dish, the blue haired girl had merely acquired a drinking glass with a little cardboard coaster underneath and a straw inside, filled with some indefinite cheap soft drink – and it was largely untouched.

If one considered the many errand of the day and the great dedication with which Asuka had kept the fruit of his labors away from his mouth (which only meant that she'd done all required 'testing' herself) one would expect that Shinji's own plate would have been significantly emptier by now, but given this apparent imbalance, every bite tasted of shame.

Sure, she might simply not be all that hungry, but then why had she invited him?

Was she simply unaware that inviting someone to dinner commonly implied the intention to share in the meal oneself?

He still remembered how awkward he'd felt that first time he'd sat across Misato after years of lonesome lunches, especially since she'd been a rather... energetic person to start with, but he couldn't really imagine that Rei would have the same hangups. She seemed more removed than anxious.

For a moment, he hoped that her outstanding answer might yet provide him with an explanation, but it turned out as sparse as he should have expected it from her, no matter how much he longed for each of the words which, at best, rolled off her lips like tiny streaks of wax from a candle, escaping by the milliliters at most.

“No, I'm not.”

“Why not? If you don't like the stuff they have down here, I can get you something from the surface...-”

“That won't be necessary.”

“Ah, so you're just not hungry. Or...” and his voice notably took an a much more somber tone as he considered the alternative. He couldn't have overlooked how often she was absent from school, even where there were no missions or experiments to contend with. “...or are you not feeling well?”

“There is nothing to worry about. It's just that I've already had my evening meal earlier.”

“What, all alone?”

So he'd simply been too late. If only he'd shown up five minutes earlier or something, he might actually have made a difference...

“That is not unusual. These past days, the Commander made a few requests for my presence as it was simple to arrange while I am stationed here, but tonight, he is required at a meeting with the Committee.”

He had no idea which committee she was referring to, but he didn't really feel like asking about it. The idea that she often got to have dinner with his father while he didn't broke his heart and it wouldn't have been fair to let her notice – so, he didn't stop the source of his questions and answers from drying up when any remaining words he may have wanted to give her stuck in his throat.

As it turned out, getting close to her was not an easy task.

Whenever he tried to reach and support for her, he felt as if he were grasping a thin air, affirming his hesitant affections before a Fata Morgana and his attempts at dedication to a sculpture of ice and stone.

It was as if he were a small child with a fleeting puppy crush on the eternal ocean itself, only able to decorate a tiny fraction of its border region with insignificant sandcastles as its nocturnal blackness sucked all hope and confidence from his being.

The rest of the 'date' took place in complete and utter silence; Apparently, she didn't see any reason to direct any further communications his way.

Without taking more than a few gulps from her drinking glass, she dutifully remained behind until he was done. Then, she excused herself with a brief goodbye and left.

He didn't follow her – what would be the point?

It was unlikely to change anything.

Instead, he remained seated at the table, like a planet who had lost the center point of its circles without anything else there to pull at him and motivate him to budge.

She'd left about half of her beverage behind and though the idea of letting it go to waste somewhat vexed him, he didn't dare to touch it.

At this point, the whole idea of good manners and how how things 'should' be were too engrained for him to touch something that was supposed to be someone else's out of his own initiative, even if the person it had belonged to was unlikely to find any further use in it – and besides if he drank from it, certain bits of children's TV show logic might suggest that this would count as an indirect kiss, which could only further the disrispect.

So all he could do was to sit there as if paralyzed, watching the lights going out all around him.

Rei... there were all those things she'd said, everything she did or didn't do...

 

Admittedly, it would have been easier to name thing things he _didn't_ drive himself mad with worry about, or the human beings that he _didn't_ find daunting to approach, but Rei was an entire category of her own; He could hardly _stop_ thinking about her since the first time he saw her, enough so to make him wonder whether there was a particular reason beyond the usual ones one might suspect.

Some of the things that had taken place between them could be considered milestones for him, around the events leading up to that time he got to see her smile at him.

In a way she had been the only person to ever accept him without anything to gain from it or any expectations tied to it, or at least, that had been his perception at the time. He might be reading something into it, after all, they'd only just gotten to know each other at the time, insofar as he could be said to know her at all – And yet, sometimes, when he observed her with only partial awareness, from the corner of his eye, at the edge of his field of vision or as he was about to doze off in the classroom after a particular bad night, he had the slightest sense that there was something very familiar about her, nothing more than a half-conscious inkling that seed hard to justify upon his return to the waking world unless he deliberately made an effort to hang onto it, and even if he did, he didn't really know what he was supposed to do with that feeling.

 

“Hello Shinji-kun! I'd heard that you'd come here, but I thought you'd gone home already. Might I know what you're pondering so intently~?”

Misato. She'd just sat down across him, setting down the drink she had apparently just gotten and greeting him with a friendly smile.

Though he didn't feel like explaining himself to her right now, he thought it fortunate that she'd shown up – She would probably distract him from his thoughts, or at least get him back home, both of which ultimately implied the same results.

Having almost forgotten her question over his surprise at her arrival, he answered it more as an afterthought. “Nothing in particular.”

“You're not fooling me, Shin-chan! I bet you were thinking of your secret crush!”

His response consistently entirely of helpless stammering “Ehm... ehm...”

Why did she always have to tease him? It didn't help that he had _indeed_ been thinking about a girl.

Misato, meanwhile, just reacted with an amused chuckle. “My, my, there's nothing to be ashamed of. It's right about time for you to start showing some interest.

After all, having someone you love is pretty cool. It's one of those things that can give you the courage to keep on going in hard times. Believe me, I know that from experience.”

“From experience? So you do have someone you love, Misato-san?”

That would be the first time he heard of it.

So far, he'd only heard about her allegedly regrettable relationship with Kaji. Be it because of her heavy workload or messy personal habits, so far it didn't seem like Misato had much success in that area despite her attractiveness and gregarious, flirty personality.

Did someone ask her out?

...well, apparently, it was complicated. Her answer turned out about as vague and cryptic as Dr. Akagi's statement about the EVAs. Rather than deny everything, telling him that it was none of his business or cheerfully confessing everything about her new suitor, she acted almost a bit bashful, playing with the little spoon in her beverage in a manner that seemed rather unlike her – the drink itself was suspicious, a simple tea rather than her usual dosage of either caffeine, perhaps because she meant to hop straight into bed now that her shift was over.

“Well you know, that's not easy to say...” she recounted pensively. “Sometimes it can be hard to figure out one's true feelings.”

“Is that so?”

“I'd have thought that you would know this better than anyone... I suppose it _should_ be easy to figure our or out thoughts, feelings and wants, we experience them all the time  & our own are the only ones we can see firsthand. But if knowing ourselves was so easy, how come we sometimes find ourselves regretting decisions that we were completely certain of at the time?

Perhaps we can only really know what we felt once everything is over, when we can look back at our decisions from a distance. But if we want to move on with life, we can't help but make decisions based on what we believe to be our true feelings. But, if we can't know those for sure, we might end up doing or saying something based on something we will later come to find we were mistaken about.

Our decisions or words would have been based on false premises, which would make them the same as lies – Even if we didn't mean them to be, or weren't even aware of it at the time...”

She carefully framed all of her cup with her hands, as if she were hoping for it to warm them. “If you think about it like that, this would mean that we're all liars...”

Did she mean to imply that she... regretted dumping Kaji? Or at least that she wasn't sure anymore? After all her complaints about him?

Shinji really didn't know what to think of this... it wasn't like he had any actual experience with the topic.

Lacking further options, he chose this moment to finally rise to his face, pick up his tray and put it away, hoping that the discussions concerning matters of the heart would follow it into the disposal wagon. He found the whole situation uncomfortable, perhaps in part because he also found his guardian rather attractive, though he realized that it was comparable to some little kid's crush on a teacher or musician – the unattainability had been part of the deal from the get-go and not something he'd ever expected to change.

He knew his place and though he'd be a little sad at first, he would probably be glad for Misato if she should finally manage to find herself a man. Shinji wouldn't mind if it were Kaji – he seemed likeable enough and Shinji felt that he could probably get along with him even if he and Misato were to move in together.

But that didn't make the topic any more comfortable to discuss and truth be told, he didn't like to see Misato all deflated and melancholy, it seemed unlike her, so it seemed like the role of distracting the other person from their worries would fall to him for a change.

“Let's just go home, alright? You're probably tired, and your shift should be over by now, shouldn't it?”

It had to be. He doubted that she'd be drinking regular old tea otherwise.

“Yeah, that seems like a good idea. Good thing we ran into each other here so I could drive you home. It's pretty late already, and you wouldn't want to be all sleepy during your school festival, would you?”

 

\----

 

The contraption on top of the tube in the center of the Dummy Plug Plant's main room may have seemed like it extended forever, but it did not.

The spine-like continuation on top of the tube lead to a brain-like mechanism of wires and tubes, itself connected to further tube-like contraptions hanging down from above, but even if one were to further 'zoom out' from that area, one would have found the glyph-engraved area around the tube to be a circular plateau at the bottom of a conical indentation, surrounded by higher ground all the way up until the dark, unlit glass container walls, apart from one path surrounded by a groove which led to that same center – and above the brain-like machine that some may have known to resemble similar constructions within the shells of the Magi systems, there was a similar shape resembling an upside-down cone with its tip cut off to house the 'brain', fitting the lower floor's geometry like a lock fits and key and suggesting that the entire contraption could be lowered to fit into the floor, perhaps by the twisted, torque-like shapes above the tip of the central contraption's 'head' that distantly resembled a 3D model of proteins highlighting barrels of helical structures – but even that was not the end. The room extended further, up the dark walls beyond whom largely liquid contents lurked in darkness, up the central columns and the pillars at the sides of the room to their very top, the room was still not over, and indeed, outlasted both the central column and the pillars both of which ended in large, disk-like structures of about the same height that were themselves covered in symbols.

The outer ones were connected by catwalk-like connections presumably housing cables, forming a hexagon containing a six-pointed star, and both the cylindrical flexible area just above the 'brain' and the spaces just below the disks radiated an eerie red light.

At about the same altitude, the tanks ended, topped off with a ring-like level of flooring with some currently closed apertures and one single deviation from its uniform, reflective black surface: A small, cabin-like installation , a rectangle enclosed by a wall on one end and a railing with a kind of shower curtain on all others, but nothing resembling a ceiling of its own to top it off once it reached the height of an average small room but not more than the incomplete approximation of one, containing little more than a few banks of instruments with various attached cables, tubes and cords, some hospital-esque metallic shelf on wheels stuffed with medical supplies and the occasional towel, as well as a plastic box in which a handful of clothes had been deposited, themselves the belongings of a girl who stood barefoot upon the plastic lattice floor of the cabin, covered only in the little brown towel resting on her head, standing still as a second figure got to work to her – She was standing next to laptop she'd placed on one of the medical instruments, taller, fuller in maturity, fully clothed adorned with earrings of paint, working away at the girl's pallid body as if it were yet another apparatus, another meat-based wetware circuit in which human science had drawn some of its inspirations from mother nature – Or perhaps, not quite in the same way.

 

If she'd been working on one of her machines, or even any other girl, she'd have been meticulous and exact like the consummate professional she was to the world, but as Dr. Akagi pierced the rubber top of a small glass bottle with a syringe and pulled its contents up into it, she didn't do it with the usual care or diligence, but almost deliberately negligent, with something like a thin, sadistic smile, almost as if she were silently praying for a tiny but lethal error in the dosage, a switch-up or bottles or some other careless misstep without doing anything to actively cause it.

She felt no sympathy for the frail, pale girl whose body she had just thoroughly examined, and considering what she'd just brought into this room, the wrath that she felt at the First Child's mere existence burned hot beneath her only subtly affected facade.

How could she not have noticed the book she's been carrying with her, how could she not take note of its author's name as the EVA pilot had deposited it cover-side up before disrobing?

'By Yui Ikari'. Of course. The fake blonde could guess all too easily why that perverted old bastard would slip this to his pretty little frankenstein-plastic-barbiedoll. She had no other proof, but it was obvious to her: Now that the fruit he had sown was finally approaching ripeness, he probably wanted to provide this cheap imitation of life with some input in order to get her to behave more like the original.

As if the book would help – the mindless thing wouldn't even complain when there was something wrong with her, she had pry all possible malfunctions out of her. Quite possible that she'd just sit in a corner and rot if there weren't anyone to order her around.

But one wondered if the Commander was even able, or willing to see that – If he weren't so incredibly proud of his little creature, he would hardly dare to provoke her, who should have been his lover, in such a brazen, humiliating way.

Much like the blossoming curves that the silent girl with the inhuman soul had somehow managed to grow in spite of her diseased, barely-living state, this book was a herald of the time when he wouldn't be needing Akagi anymore... and he dared to throw it right in her face!

It was this anger that drove her as she jammed the injection needle into the flesh of his favorite toy without making the slightest effort to avoid causing pain – it wasn't as if she was going to complain – indeed, she could probably have beaten that horrid thing black and blue and asphyxiated her with thin wires before she'd even _think_ of calling for help.

And that was precisely why she hated it.

“The remaining readings are all normal,” she explained, more to the ether than to the naked homunculus standing before her, its skin white as the plastic of a shop dummy, if 'naked' was even the right word – When Ikari and Fuyutsuki had assembled their oversized blow up doll, they had forgotten to imbue her with any sense of modesty or shame.

Clothing was something for humans, it was only natural for this lump of vat-grown meat to be uncovered when its function demanded it.

Despite everything, the tone in which Akagi spoke to it could almost have been mistaken for congeniality, though it was little more than the expected professional politeness'd grown accustomed of using: “You're not feeling anything else unusual about your body, are you?”

“No.”

Akagi put the syringe down into a kidney dish and reached for a package of bandaids.

“And you haven't noticed any irregularities in your consciousness either?”

“No.”

She placed the bandaid onto the construct's arm. It's surroundings were visibly covered in needle scars – the need for injections was great, while the regenerative capacities of the artificial human left much to be desired.

Disparagingly, the scientist eyed the clothes the synthetic girl had cast off before, presumably her pajamas given that it wasn't her plugsuit.

The thought of losing to something like that was ridiculous and brought forth malice:

“Oh my, poor girl, still stuck wearing this boring underwear...” she mused with an insincere smile. “How would you like it if I got you some cuter ones?”

“There is no problem.”

Aha! That would teach that bastard a lesson, and show him than she was just as capable of provoking him.

But why wait until the next time he felt like unwrapping his love doll if she could speed things up? She thought it worth the risk to one-up this: “Why don't you ask commander Ikari to buy you some?”

“There is no need.”

“I see.” Damned brat. The worst was that she wasn't even resisting her on purpose... “We're done for today. Get dressed and go to bed, you need to be well rested in case you're needed tomorrow.”

And of course, the artificial child did as she was told, obedient as a robot – but not without picking up her book first.

How much more would she have to suffer because of that girl?

 

 

\---

Half asleep and yet floating suspended between waking and dreaming, Mayumi was trying to find her rest despite the painful throbbing inside of her, which had resumed in full force since the nightfall.

In a thin, innocent pajamas of soft pastel pink, she lay hidden under her covers, surrounded by darkness, with both hands holding her aching midsection.

At first, the pain had made it hard to find rest, but once they'd tired out the girl to the point where she could no longer resist her exhaustion, it only served to make her dreams wilder, faster and filled with intense colors.

As the throbbing extracted small whimpers of pain from her, the drowsy remainders of her consciousness seemed to connect to something, as if every beat of that dark heart was a wrecking ball slamming into a gate of steel until it finally burst.

She found herself dreaming of a little train wagon, and even though she didn't recognize this particular one, she'd been on enough train rides for her mind to accept it as an usual situation for her life.

As much as the impression that these were the memories of someone else surrounded the edges of her perception like an immaterial phantom sucking all the warmth of a room, they _could_ have been her own, given how often she'd found herself in this same situation, feeling these same feelings.

It was only a few days since the last time it happened, herself riding on a train that was meant to bring her to some strange new place, her only comfort being the book she was clinging from – and she'd always have a book with her.

She liked books. The stories usually centered around brave, strong people mastering the toughest of circumstances and accomplishing great, exceptional deeds – And even the fearful, weak people in those stories often found protection, or at least, _someone_ who would protect them – Even the protagonists of the darkest, bleakest stories were worth being discussed or interesting in some way. There might be flawed people, even evil ones, but very few boring or uninteresting people, for then, it would be a bad story.

That's why she liked to hide away in those imaginary worlds – they were much more worthwhile than the terrible life she had to put up with every day when she wasn't sunken into a story – and even then, it wasn't even her own fantasies that she retreated to, but the stories of other, exceptional people – She was not the sort of person who could tell a story, or who would be worth telling a story _about_.

There was nothing special or worth mentioning about her; She only ever existed in the backgrounds. She wasn't a praiseworthy person, not the sort who could smile to others and make them happy. She found it hard to express herself with words and so, she'd usually remained silent – and that's why no one would ever learn of her fears or the frantic, agonizing feelings inside her.

But, that silent person who always kept to the background...

Mayumi hated her.

She couldn't stand the sight of that person!

Her mother may have been that same kind of person, always quiet, always keeping everything to herself, never expressing anything of her suffering – at least, until that day her young daughter had found her with opened wrists.

She hated people like that.

She could understand the impression others would get of her, or why they wouldn't want t be around her. Such a person _deserved_ to be made fun of, deserved even that time a boy had threatened her with his pocketknife just to amuse himself – indeed she sometimes thought it wouldn't be too bad if such a knife were rammed straight into her.

As it was now, her life was no better than that of a fish in a bowl: She couldn't smile, or talk or be with anyone-

Except that there was a part of her that disagreed with that, a part of herself she hadn't even been aware of that chose to contradict her with a single image, representing many things that went far beyond the last days with the example of a boy who seemed to share the same suffering, know the same loneliness and share the same scar, but had somehow still managed to seat himself across her.

She didn't even know she could do such a thing as give backtalk, even if it was only to herself, and not particularly convincing.

The memory of his face was probably meant to be a 'living proof' or perhaps just a simple memo, a note to call the events of the last few days back to her memory and get herself to admit that she was very much capable of laughing and talking with others if only she found the opportunity, that she'd been noticed already and might go on to make herself a lot more noticeable at the school festival, to confirm her existence in front of all of her new school.

As for Ikari-kun... yeah, it seemed like he might be a little bit interested in her, but what did that even mean?

What guarantee did she have that he and his friends wouldn't desert, abandon or betray her in the end? In the end, everyone left her, just like her mother had.

The only ones who never betrayed her were her beloved books...

Not fully understanding the reason for her tears after her addled visions remained behind the veil that masked the gate to the land of dreams when she was half awakened by her own sobs, Mayumi could not shake off the almost prophetic certainty that sunrise would bring tragedy with it when it returned to disperse the darkness.

In the end, singing in front of a large audience at the side of a nice boy was something she had never been meant for.

 

 

___

  1. The Exchange between Ritsuko & Rei at the end is largely styled after that one omitted scene from 2.22. And yes, it's the exact same location that ends up being ReiQ's 'quarters' later on.

  2. So, the big day of the school festival has come and several plot threads are still dangling in the air. Anything could happen. Find out what exactly in chapter 2.13: [Empty Promises]




 


	32. 13: [Empty Promises]

##  ****13: [Empty Promises]** **

  
\---

 

**_Love, love is a verb_**

_Love is a doing word_

_Fearless on my breath  
_

**_Gentle impulsion_ **

_Shakes me, makes me lighter_

_Fearless on my breath  
_

**_Teardrop on the fire_ **

_Fearless on my breath  
_

**_Nine night of matter_ **

_Black flowers blossom_

_Fearless on my breath_

_Black flowers blossom_

_Fearless on my breath  
_

**_Teardrop on the fire_ **

_Fearless on my...  
_

_  
_

**_Water is my eye_ **

_Most faithful mirror_

_Fearless on my breath_

_Teardrop on the fire_

_Of a confession_

_Fearless on my breath_

_Most faithful mirror_

_Fearless on my breath  
_

_  
_

**_Teardrop on the fire_ **

_Fearless on my breath  
_

**_You're stumbling a little_ **

_You're stumbling a little_

 

_-Massive Attack,‘Teardrop‘_

 

 

\----

 

Ayanami Rei – Bandages. Mysteries. Indifference. Object of fascination. Mother.

 

Shikinami Asuka Langley – Girl. Perplexing. Formidable. Indecipherable. Sex.

 

Katsuragi Misato – Adult. Superior. Meddlesome. Soldier. Family.

 

Makinami Mari Illustrious – Stranger. Feral. Spanner in the Works. Kindness. Change.

 

Ikai Gendo – Harsh. Commander. Hatred. Anger. Father. Father. Father....

 

And many, many more.

People he knew. People who knew _him_.

Familiar places. Misato's Apartment. The School. Ayanami's room. NERV headquarters.

It all droned past him like a movie or play which he'd already seen so often as to be able to recite it by heart. The various figures danced across the stage as it's narrative told of many events, some of which he already knew, some of which he shouldn't know yet, some that he should never have found out about, and some of which he desperately wanted to erase.

Sometimes slowly burbling along its way, and yet sometimes moving with almost painful, abrupt motions, the story unfolded like the plot a Greek tragedy, and at the same time, unfurled even further, allowing him to see what could be considered the inner source code which drove it forward, the hidden thoughts, the basic motivations, the sincere, heartfelt words which had remained unspoken:

 

“Please don't abandon me.”

 

“Please don't give up on me.”

 

“Please don't kill me.”

 

The whole tale was akin to a twisting maelstrom of deepest despair and sweetest ecstasy , as if someone had ripped a single great hole into the fabric of the world, thus weaving hell and heaven together.

 

And Shinji? He found himself at the whirlpool's very center, helpless as he was being subjected to all these absurd events, and yet, right now, he also felt as if there were a certain distance between himself and the madness that had been taking place, as if he were observing it without really taking part in it, watching it like a movie or a memory, from some distant place at the end of it all, or perhaps above it.

 

What sort of place was that supposed to be?

Well, Shinji was sure that he had never been there, and that what was about to take place there was supposed to be physically impossible. According to the circumstances he was aware of, they couldn't have been at the same place at the same time, and certainly not in _this_ place. The whole thing was insane and impossible, but while he might take the greater madness as a given, it was this simpler, more mundane kind of impossibility that irritated him the most -

The kind of impossibility that might not have been apparent right away just by looking at the unassuming scene before him – Sure, he'd never been here insofar as he knew, but it looked like a perfectly ordinary auditorium or assembly hall, with an unassuming stage framed by unremarkable plastic curtains, a normal wooden floor and a few spotlights that did not seem out of place in such a room.

Upon closer inspection, he could spot strangely familiar details like the green 'exit' sign above the door, a group of light switches, a couple of different stage design background painted onto large canvas screens. Tape demarcations on the floor which denoted how the folding chairs that were currently piled up in a corner were to be arranged in case someone came around to see a play – but at the moment, there was no one here for whom the chairs could have been spread out. The room was closed off and entirely empty, save for a single, distorted cone of light and the one folded-up chair tethering at its edge, bordering on the line between light and darkness, betwixt being and nothingness.

 

There was no one here but himself – and he wasn't even entirely sure about that last bit.... all of this seemed strangely familiar, in more than one way, as if there had not only been a previous visit to this place, but also some other, unrelated incident, something to do with EVA 01. Something that wasn't supposed to have happened yet.

 

The words 'before' and 'after' seemed to have lost their meaning, as if the laws of time had been suspended at this exact place – and that was precisely why he wondered whether he hadn't smashed this place into tiny shards with his own two hands, only to be warmly received by everybody else – or, hadn't he actually spent a good while wandering the wastes by himself before being joined by Asuka? The end of the story seemed to be the blurriest part of it all, and no matter how hard he thought to look, any notion of 'afterward' refused to emerge, not a single image of scene that could be said to have taken place long after sorrow and loneliness returned into this world with joy and uniqueness in tow.

 

Nonetheless, he was certain that he was the one who ended this, whatever particular forms 'this' might have taken.

 

And just as he's formed that thought, there was a sudden change, a squeaking of the door followed by a further cone falling inwards, toward the folding chair which so far had been the only point to be illuminating, casting light onto a long stretch of the wooden floor which was now split evenly between light and shadow along with the chair.

 

Suddenly realizing that he was sitting in the aforementioned chair, Shinji followed the long shadow of the person in the doorway all the way to its source, only to be met with his own image, complete with his Cello by his side.

 

“I don't know...” he reflected upon himself, admitting to himself the doubts which this confusion had led him to: “Maybe I was to weak, or my convictions not honest enough. Perhaps I never stopped fooling myself and simply tried to tell myself that I'd learned from this. Or maybe all the insights I thought I had found were illusory to begin with.”

 

“I thought we'd agree to let go of that attitude.” his counterpart at the door replied in an almost jarringly calm voice that seemed almost amused in a childlike manner and all the more out of place for it. “You should know better than anyone else why you made the choices that you did. And if it was that decision which ultimately guided your actions, it doesn't matter what other fears our doubts you may have had. In the end, what matters are your actions. ”

“Well, I know, and that's terrible...”

“Terrible? Don't you mean wonderful?”

“In any case, if it is like you say, then I know what I decided, and it wasn't this.”

“Exactly.” His other self chuckled once again. “Only a sullen toddler would assume that their will would immediately become reality. That doesn't change that will is an important precondition for change. But we've been through this a thousand times, haven't we?”

“Yes, but... what's happening here?”

“Since I am you, don't know this either. What make you think I would have the answer to that?”

Shinji lowered this gaze. “Well, you're here, and I don't know who else to ask.”

“Ayanami might know the answer.” speculated his reflection.

“Ayanami? Why her of all people?”

Once again, his counterpart in the doorway appeared unduly amused.

“What's so funny?!” Shinji exclaimed, at once accusing, uncertain and somewhat ashamed to find himself in the dark about this.

“You just asked me another question.”

“And you can't tell me, right?”

“Yes. I can.”

Surprised, Shinji looked up at his counterpart.

“But that's exactly the point. Why are you asking about something that you already know?”

 

And then, it struck him like lightning, rushing past him like the squeaking screeches of a videotape being rewound, if not a single, inhuman scream, a song consisting of a single, terrible sound, penned in his very own voice.

 

There was a multitude of grotesquely familiar faces turning around in unison.

Gazes that seemed to notice him, but held no recognition.

One and the same impossible grin where no soul should have dwelt.

One and the same, always the exact same face, a face that much resembled his own, a face that ought to have been confined to the blurred, incomplete recollections of early childhood and still appeared to him every day at school.

 

A face he had seen laid out before him in the size of a mountain rage, split in two, sliding apart, the eyes burst open like a ripe cherry on a rainy day, the same, revolting smile he'd once glimpsed beyond the glass; Disturbing images and belated realizations mixing with what had once been moments of innocent togetherness, brewing into a toxic sludge.

 

The face of the enormous corpse he'd seen in his visions, the face of -

No. That couldn't be, and even if it were to be true, he wouldn't know it. He didn't even recall his mother's face, he must have mixed something up.

 

It was as if there were some amorphous dark lump in between the circuits of his mind, and some part of himself which took great pains to keep it there, so that he wouldn't make that connection, so that he wouldn't draw that conclusion, to ensure that he would never recognize that face.

And yet, the shadow's mere presence already told him more than he could ever want to know, extinguishing all interest in pursuing the matter into further thoughts or questions. It sufficed to suspect that the things hidden beyond that particular veil had once felt unbearable even compared to his current situation.

But none of that could take away his fear.

“But what... should I do...”

His counterpart pushed himself away from the part of the door frame he had been leaning against and stood up to his full height, wearing a pleased smirk on his lips.

“For once, that's actually a sensible question to be asking yourself. What should you do? What do you want? What would you like to happen? Do you want this to end?”

“Sure I'd want that, but I can't just-”

“Then think about what you _can_ do. Who am I? Why am I here? What tools do I hold in my hands?”

At least that last question was easily answered – as he had noticed pretty much straight away, his double was carrying the case containing his cello, and after following his shadow to its end, he could conclude that the same was true for himself – what more, it appeared that someone had thoughtfully placed a music stand next to his chair, complete with the sheet music for a piece he'd been practicing as of late, as if to ensure that there would be nothing left for him to do except to open the case, take out his nstrument and start playing.

 

Since this seemed to be what was expected of him in this place, and since nothing (least of all his own brain) provided him with any alternate suggestions, he did exactly that, lifted the instrument from his case, and made a spontaneous attempt to coax the first few bars from the strings.

He did this without great expectations, and did not get beyond the first few notes before capitulating with a sigh. He had known from the very beginning that he wouldn't be able to do this, and that this fact would never change.

 

Which tasteless joke of what moody fates had chosen to lay this munomental task at his feet?

 

There had to be thousands of others, if not _hundreds of thousands_ who would have made more suitable keepers for the planet's destiny, so why him?

 

\---

 

"Why you? Well, because we'll probably be late, just because you're such a sleepyhead! "Asuka responded angrily, hands clasped while she stretched her arms out for a moment. "So hurry up now!"

 

Still a bit sleepy as he followed his roommate on the way to school, Shinji would have liked to do so, but found himself hard pressed to follow through in practice, given that the Second Child had „granted“ him the „exclusive principle“ of ferrying several boxes filled with pies and cakes.

Even at moderate speeds, that noble task demanded a none too insignificant balancing act, especially since he had so noticeable difficulties to look past the tower of pastries and had to transport a large, unwieldy instrument case at the same time which, optimistically speaking, at least provided a counterweight to the various baked goods.

 

Asuka, who, as one might tell from her complaints, was somewhat ahead of of him, wasn't carying the slightest amount of pastries on her person, unless once counted that one cookie in her lunch box – Apparently, it was a man's job to carry things.

 

Like much else about her, this too was drenched in thinly veiled hypocrisy – Woe betide the piteous fool who dared to suggest that anything was “a woman's work” in her presence, but when it was the other way around, she'd gladly go along with it, at least, until she got hungry and demanded that her food be on the table, regardless of whether or not it would be considered 'men's work', as long as she wouldn't get stuck with the rather... modest... cooking skills of their only female roommate.

 

But in the end, he didn't mind it _that_ much... He was glad to be walking to school with her.

 

"... sorry ..." he started, thus a little submissively. "... It's just that I ... haven't been-"

 

"Oh, save your excuses! Didn't I tell you to quit apologizing all the time?"

 

Yeah, she was probably right about that ... He hadn't really put any thought into it, but, as he realized afterwards, had been blindly following his habits.

 

Changing oneself was not an easy task. Heaven knows if it was even possible.

 

Following after Asuka, his gaze lowered insofar as the boxes of pies allowed for it, he wondered if he would ever be able to cross these few steps of distance between himself and the redheaded EVA pilot.

 

He very nearly took that step when he half considered mentioning those dreams whose bewildering, sometimes horrifying intensity had taken their toll on him;

He would go to bed in order to bed to calm down and rest, only to be haunted by these wearisome visions that lead him to wake up drained and exhausted, drenched in sweat as if from some manner of strenuous exercise.

Then, during the day, he was plagued by questions about what that all meant- he had not met Yui for a while, heard nothing of the supposed serial killer, and even the "the-world-is-wrongs" had become noticeably fewer – but even if he dared to hope that this meant that everything was back to normal somehow, he still felt insecure, left to himself in the uncertain darkness. Under these circumstances, it should not come as a surprise that he found himself feeling somewhat battered, even if the last few battles had been relatively successful and uncomplicated; He'd never had the strongest of constitutions to begin with, and it wasn't as if he could change this -

 

In any case, Asuka would be just about the last person from whom he could expect any sort of sympathy or concern.

 

“Oi! Shinji!”

 

Due to the confusion often associated with being brought back down to earth from the distant heights of thought, Shinji only managed to assign the incoming voice to his best friend after said boys' waving arm had crossed his field of vision often enough to be perceived by his still half-absent mind -

But even if his reaction was humble, subdued and not particularly exuberant, the change from troubled to anticipatory followed swiftly enough once that basic recognition had taken place – especially since it wasn't just Touji.

 

The enthusiastic greeting had probably been his idea, but he wasn't the only one who appeared to have been expecting him – Everyone was gathered together in a veritable pile. Kensuke, Nagato and Mayumi might not have been energetic enough to make their rejoicing quite that public, but all their faces lit up notably once they realized that he'd spotted their group.

 

As crazy as it might sound, there were actually people who seemed happy to see him.

 

Shinji didn't think he'd ever be to get used to it, or even to fully believe it – in the time it took him to accept this reality and process it enough to take the first step toward them, the small group had already swarmed forward to surround him.

 

"What do we have there?" Kensuke asked directly, turning his attention to the plastic containers in his friend's arms.

 

"Oh that…"

 

Would you be angry if they found out that he had helped Asuka with her project?

 

"Well, would you look at that! It's the rest of the idiot quartet!" The Second Child spoke up. She strongly felt that none of those present were paying nearly enough attention to her, and worse yet: For some reason, they were all raising a fuss over her worthless roommate, leaving her to find herself just a tiny bit ignored, and that did not cheer her up in the least.

That girl's presence did not do much to mollify her, either - Asuka had not left her out of the welcome by accident.

 

Of course, it was far below her to remember the name of someone who might as well have the word "loser" written all across her forehead and seemed more concerned with books than people. And yet, she'd been the one to arrive at the classroom alongside Shinji yesterday, and that was something that Asuka, hadn't – or rather couldn't overlook, no more than any other self-respecting person.

Thus, she answered her classmate's question with a boastful gesture: “This is our contribution to today's school festival. Originally, I had planned to do something much more impressive than just baking cakes, but since everyone else was too lazy, I was forced to sacrifice my precious time for the common good...”

 

The boys quickly suspected that the sacrifice had been mostly on Shinji's part, and the Third Child's rather unimpressed expression only served to confirm their theory.

 

“Though I have to admit that our Daddy's boy helped me out a bit...”

Did he just hear that right?

“...at least when it comes to carrying this stuff.”

Alas! It was not to be.

“Is that true?” Touji revolted. But not for the reasons his cake-laden friend would have guessed at first: “Sorry buddy, but how can you let yourself get pushed around like this by a girl?”

“It's commonly known as 'being a gentleman'” Kensuke explained, somewhat amused at his friend's slightly old-fashioned views. “Still, it does speak of rather low moral character that she would abuse her roommate's kindness in such a brazen manner...”

 

"What exactly are you implying?!" came Asuka's angry retort.

 

Since Kensuke was no fan of pain, he had initially intended to end this exchange on peacefull terms, but before he had the opportunity to do so, he was preempted by a certain hotheaded friend of his: “Exactly what you think!”

To supplement his provocation, Touji made a point of blocking the redhead's path as Shinji watched helplessly. He half attempted some conciliatory gestures, but stopped himself halfway through when he realized that they wouldn't be of any use. He still didn't know how to cope with larger gatherings of people, even if they consisted entirely of his own friends and close acquaintances – It would be one thing if he had the time to focus on each of them individually, but as things were now, even this small crowd of five proved overwhelming.

 

By the time Asuka was threatening to “teach them a thing or two about low moral character”, the whole exchange had unquestionably gone sour.

Mayumi seemed to be thinking much the same and looked to Nagato for help, but for all that he might have looked like a sensible older person from a distance, he was no more experienced in dissolving escalating quarrels – ultimately, his good upbringing urged him to defuse the impending fistfight, but he knew both parties far too well to hope for a peaceful resolution.

 

So, he opted for a diversion instead: “Perhaps we should... er... get to school before we get scolded by Horaki-san?” he suggested, bravely moving into the inner circle of the commotion towards Shinji and the towering pile of boxes in his arms. “How about we each take one of these before any of them end up on the floor? After all, we all want us to have enough food for the school festival, right...?”

 

In complete agreement, Kensuke went ahead and reached out to receive another box of pie, hoping that this would move certain others to do the same – Asuka was a lost cause, but perhaps Touji could be convinced to stop egging her on – To his credit, he seemed to recognize the futility of continuing the argument, or at least, conceded that he didn't have it in him to punch a younger girl in the face, even if she was an exquisite pain in the neck.

All things considered, the least troublesome option was to help transport the sweets with only _a little_ grumbling.

 

The last to come along in order to relieve the EVA pilot of his burdens was Mayumi – not because she was lazy, but more because she didn't dare to be so close to Asuka, the cake was immediately taken from her.  
  
"No, thank you!" Captain Shikinami replied decisively. "I am perfectly capable of taking care of my project myself. That would be the day, as if I'd risk letting you touch the hard fruits of my labor and watch as they end up to the ground. I bet you'd like that!"  
  
Clearly unsettled by the hostility, Mayumi looked at her empty hands.  
  
What was that... premonition?  
  
Not so long ago she would have been worried about it, but now it seemed negligible, yes, certainly a product of her own insecurity or something like that, perhaps just an imagination; the sun was shining, the air was fresh, the big day had come, and everyone around her was in good spirits...

 

Shinji, who was carrying one last cake, had a brief internal debate about whether it would be ruder not to let her carry anything or to give every last box away and stay behind empty-handed. (That he still had to carry the case with his all too bulky cello led him to feel tempted in this regard...)

 

 

Ultimately, he decided that any answer to this question would essentially be unneded if he kept standing around here in deep thought while the rest of the group kept moving towards school - his friends would wait for him, but Asuka wouldn't..

 

How did they get so far all of a sudden?

 

Well, after yesterday's efforts and sleep quality, this should not be surprising.

 

Thus, he made sure that he held the remaining cake firmly in his hand before hurrying after them.

 

\---

 

After all instruments, cakes, etc. had been unloaded onto some of the empty school desks, which were still sufficiently available even after the ever-shrinking II-A class had recently been moved to a smaller room, the "idiot quartet" (plus Mayumi) decided to use the remaining time until the teachers' arrival for their very own meeting and arranged themselves around what would normally be Mayumi's seat.

 

There were more than enough free tables and chairs, especially since the other students had also gathered into small groups for similar purposes - someone had even taken the time to express his anticipation of the coming party by scribbling on the blackboard, which among other things had been decorated with the words "Party! Party! "Party!" .

 

"We're ready for the big day," Touji finally concluded, ending the discussion about the last organisational details.

 

"Yep." Kensuke confirmed. "And don't worry, after I've mixed them, our CDs are absolutely perfect!"

 

Shinji assented with a brief sound. "Mh-hm."

 

So everything came together – basically, they only had to wait for the beginning of the festival and start playing.

 

Strange that he didn't ask himself whether Misato would actually come, but rather whether she would like it, and even that without great fear of failure.

 

Even that his father wouldn't be here seemed like a simple fact on the edge of his wareness; instead he stood up straight, his arms crossed in front of his chest, for the first time in his life really feeling something like pride without wondering if he was allowed to do so.

 

One might think that what he saw when he turned his gaze to his left was enough to imply that the answer to this question was "yes" - Mayumi also stood in an atypically light-hearted posture, making no attempt to hide her height in any way; her face radiated, her hands held together at the fingertips in a rather cute way, and that this might well be another archievement of his triggered feelings he had long since longed for without really knowing it.

 

"Well, let's do our best."

 

"That's right."

 

She was so cute when she was happy.

 

He wished she would smile more often.

 

BAM

 

It happened so quickly that you couldn't really describe it properly - as soon as Shinji had registered and processed the first sensory impressions about it, it was over.

 

What remained were echoing cries, furniture that had fallen over and an excited mass of panic-stricken pupils. The content of the room must have crossed a line where the largest percentage of people stopped acting according to the rules of reason and yet obeyed it all the more by falling into the kind of basic herdlike behavior that could be simulated in a computer according to simple mathematical models.

 

The baked goods to which the Third Child had sacrificed hours of his life were soon flat on the ground like a handful of mud thrown around by a small child, and a countless numbers of shoes stomped through amids the agitation, spreading the splashing masses even further, forming an universe of speckles on the floor.

 

It was kind of creepy to see his occasional trips to the edge of death bleed into what he considered his "real life" without warning - when he dismally tore himself from place where the shock had hurled him to sometime earlier, he saw himself actually standing up and following his friends to the window instead of just staring with his eyes wide open; one could have been forgiven for believing that it was Touji, Kensuke and Nagato who belonged to the local elite defense group.

 

It was them who seemed to have kept their nerves under wraps and set out directly to assess the situation while many of their fellow students were shouting in all directions.

 

Strangely, the many events that had taken place here in recent months seemed to have steeled them more than the one who had actually fought the battles.

 

Shinji had reacted, but the whole thing hadn't really arrived in his head yet... Was that... an earthquake?

 

No, of course not.

 

He was surprised that he was still considering something "normal" like that.

 

If his previous experience was not sufficient to recognize what this was, he should at least have been able to learn it from the conversations of his classmates:

 

"It was an explosion." Kensuke had already recognized this almost immediately after rising back onto his feet.

 

"Was that a bomb or something?" Touji asked, supporting himself with his forearm against the window pane to be able to see through it better despite the radiator on the wall.

 

"No." Replied the military Otaku. "...This is..."

 

Yeah, what _was_ that?

 

The alarm that sounded shortly afterwards made it essentially obvious.

 

It was just that Shinji hadn't wanted to admit it.

 

Not now.

 

Not today of all days.

 

Not on a day like this, which according to the miniature of the world order in his head had actually been destined for something completely different.

 

Why did something like this have to happen today of all days and mercilessly destroy everything he had so carefully planned and prepared?  
  
The Third Child almost wondered why he couldn't just have his normal life with his normal events, but the question was insane.  
  
His normal life had been the empty, silently rippling time with his teacher.  
  
This here, all here, everything here, in what was now called his life, was bought and payed for with his blood on the battlefield, and its Altar demanded another sacrifice.   
  
This was the kind of cursed existence he had lead here, and once Asuka demanded that he look it in the face ("Daddy's boy! Let's go!") he couldn't deny it anymore.  
  
"Good luck, Shinji!" Touji called after him. "Yes, and take good care of yourself!" Nagato added. "Show that thing what the EVA's made of!" Kensuke concluded.  
  
But when the door fell shut behind the pilots not too long after the end of that sentence, there was nothing more to hold the student's attention and delay the inevitable panic - there was speculation as to whether the shock meant that they hadn't noticed the angel before it arrived in town, and whether this in turn meant that the angel could overturn the school building like a domino at any given moment.  
  
Even though some concerned students - including Nagato and - surprisingly - Touji as well - tried to counteract this - there were also students (including Kensuke) who did not notice much of the panic, ironically, because they were stuck to the window front trying to catch a glimpse of the monster of the week.  
  
Everyone had questions, nobody had answers, and everyone was talking out of turn.  
  
What nobody noticed in all the confusion was that one a girl had not gotten up again after the shock wave had thrown her rudely to the floor - even those who had almost become her bandmates were too moved by the unfolding drama to look around for Mayumi.  
  
To their credit, they had no real reason to suspect that their newest classmate would still be trembling in pain on the floor - the shock wave was far from strong enough to break human bones and they could not suspect anything of the pain that had swept her from her feet just before the explosion resounded, as if the bang had not happened somewhere out there but right inside her.  
  
While the symptoms had turned out unusually mild the last few days, at least compared to what they were normally like, the bloodcurdling pain had now returned in full force, so much that it seemed to exceed even the attack from the day before yesterday by a far margin. At the time she had thought that nerve cells that were sending this pain to her brain must surely have been firing at their upper limit, the sensations that tortured her now exceeded all limits of her imagination.  
  


She felt no unusual warmth on the hand she had pressed against her midsection, but this was in complete contradiction to the perception from the inner side of her body, which felt as if it was ablaze with flames; She felt the heat seemingly pumping through her body and leaving, paradoxically, as cold sweat, and it refused to end; she felt like the Burning Bush from the Book of Exodus, the divine apparition that kept burning without crumbling away.  
  
What she went through must have been the torments of hell; she had given up rationalizing it away as something earthly. The agony sat so deep within her, and gripped her so intensely, that she began to doubt whether its cause was really to be found with a dysfunction of her body, and was slowly converted to the thought that it had to be her bare soul, yes, the naked essence of her being in whose deepest reveals the pain must be lodged.  
  
She felt as if she were seeing herself burning up, ridiculously fast and yet agonizingly slowly in the glistening corona of the sun, like a moth in a lamp; the weak, fragile materials from which her body and mind were made were simply not made to contain such a thing.  
  
Just as well, one could have tried to accommodate nuclear fusion in a cardboard box. All that she was, all that made her whoever she had been, burst and groaned under the pressure of the awakening might that seemed to be looking for its way out of her.  
  
She almost expected her skin to break open like crumbling clay to release the light behind it, leaving behind only a drained and dried-up cocoon, except that would mean an end to her suffering, and such clemency would not be granted to her.  
  
The battle raging in her boiling insides remained hidden from all observers behind the form of trembling young girl who supported herself with one hand from the ground and pressed the other firmly to the source of her perdition.  
  
Her glasses had long since slipped from her seat down to the floor, and her long, black hair had also followed the commands of gravity and fulfilled its mission to cover her pain-distorted face like a curtain.  
  
But despite all this, this wretched scene was only a small part of the confusion, the individual components of which had already gone into a state of complete chaos.  
  
At least until the door opened as if it were the heavens, and none other than Hikari appeared behind it to issue an authoritarian order:  
  
"Everybody quiet!"   
  
Amazingly, everyone quit talking, and even those faces who had stuck to the glass turned away from it.  
  
"What's all the fuss about? What are you still doing here, anyway? Didn't you hear the alarm? It's not the first time. What are we doing all these evacuation drills for? Now, line up in double rows and leave the building in an orderly fashion!"  
  
Strange.  
  


As much as Touji used to make fun of her for acting like a mother hen, it seemed to him now that she had dispelled the chaos as easily as Moses parted the floods. Not that he knew much about mothers and such, he had never really had one; She had died when his little sister was still a baby and he himself little more than a half-pint.

 

Even so, the way she'd acted right now reminded him if not of a mother, then of this one child in a group of fictional orphans who would try to take care of the others and hold the group together against an unforgiving world .

 

Due to the fact that his father and grandfather had to make money for his family, he had often been left to care for his sister, who had in turn always felt the need to act mature and reasonable to make it easier on her caretakers - he had to admit that despite his best efforts, little Sakura would probably make a better authority figure than himself, a state # which had been on full display, when she scolded him for his somewhat unorthodox and, looking back, simply not correct methods of venting his frustration.

 

Seen from this side, the stupid, bitchy chick, whom he had only ever perceived as moderately annoying for years seemed almost... admirable.

 

Or maybe Asuka was right and he had spent a little too much time in the sun.

 

To be honest, the latter seemed more likely.

 

 

Either way, now that the class was mostly arranged in a reasonably orderly formation, it became clear that someone had not been able to register Hikari's arrival – the one exception being Mayumi.

 

She had certainly noticed their steps and words, but would have much preferred to be cut off from the noises and sights around her. They merged into a wild swirl of glaring sensory impressions, which in its current state simply overloaded her too much for her to process it.

 

This infernal pain had literally burned away her consciousness, she was still in the same pose supported by her arm, she was still trembling and whimpering, but she didn't really notice any of it, all higher functions such as feeling, thinking and reacting had temporarily switched off in the face of the all-drowning stimulus from the deepest, oldest parts of the brain.

 

Touji, who was the first to notice her situation and promptly reacted by squatting towards her, finally roused her attention with some shouting and a careful shake of her right shoulder.

 

She would have expected that this pain would somehow stop if only she had somehow been torn out of her rigidity, but only under the assumption that this agony couldn't possibly be real.

 

As she straightened up and turned to the four classmates who, at a time when they could not determine anything more precise, had gathered around her - Shinji's friends and the class representative. I

 

t was hard for her to just sit there; She felt the sweat running down her face in beads.

 

"...Are you all right, Yamagishi-san?" asked the class representative, clearly worried.

 

"Did you hurt yourself when you fell?" added Touji, whose big, masculine hands were unexpectedly careful at holding her upright.

 

"...No..." pressed Mayumi across her pale lips. "I just... I don't feel so good..."

 

"It's no wonder." Touji stated, reaching out his hand to her. "I know all of this can be pretty intense. But I'm afraid you'll have to get used to these fights in the near future. It's a common thing in this town."

 

She hesitantly took the hand offered to her. The contrast between her exhausted pallor and the tall boy's bronzed skin was fairly blatant.

 

As for him, he somehow felt his big brother instincts tingling, even if the girl before him was the same age as him.

 

Standing up unfortunately meant that the aching tissues in Mayumi's interior had to move and shift against each other, which made her wince at every movement.

 

And whether it was because of their similar histories or a hint of face, Touji and Hikari both ended up reaching to support their newest classmate at the same time, leading their arms to brush against each other behind Mayumi's back.

 

Yet neither of them had the time to concern themselves with that happenstance, it was neither the right time nor the right place - in fact, they wouldn't notice that their limbs had touched at all until after they had parted and registered a sudden lack of warmth in certain spots. But this would happen much, much later; At the moment, their main concern was to support Mayumi and get her to the nearest shelter along with all their other classmates.

Even with only one hand to gesticulate with, Hikari had a good grip on the surrounding crowd.

The nearest access point to the geofront was not far.

 

"Don't worry..." Kensuke said with a smile to the troubled girl. "Shinji will fix it."

 

"Ikari-kun....?"

 

"Yeah! You've probably heard of it already, he's going to ride this super-cool giant robot and beat up some gigantic critters!" the freckled boy explained, gesticulating with his right first, his eyes sparkling with enthusiasm. "And not just him. Shikinami too. You know, the bitchy foreign girl."

 

"Aida! Do you really think it's appropriate to insult Asuka while she's out there risking her life for us?"

 

"Alright, class president... Oh, and then there's Ayanami."

 

"Aya...nami?"

 

"Yep." Confirmed Touji. "Another girl. A little weird, but it's nice once you get to know her. Or at least that's what Shinji says. But he's pretty much the only one she ever really talk to... You shouldn't have met her yet, the poor girl is on some kind of patrol mission right now. She was pretty much assigned to fulltime guard duty on the very day you arrived..."

 

That last bit made Mayumi listen up, insofar as her weakened condition allowed it.

 

The thunder of the mighty heartbeat inside her seemed tp be drowning out her surroundings with every passing minute, slowly but steadily.

 

That... that couldn't be, could it? This coincidence, this... impression, this hunch that was coming up inside her... The way she had found herself at the edge of the battlefield, the uncanny precision with which her pain attacks seemed to coincide with the emergence of the monster.

 

Her knees were soft as butter, everything around her seemed to turn and run into each other, while her perceptual capacity was increasingly taken over by the foreign heartbeat.

 

It was a struggle to stay on your feet and stumble along the path her classmates were taking. Her strength seemed to be dwindling almost exponentially, as if it were flowing unhindered out of it like some volatile, steaming liquid from a shattered vessel.

 

"Really... since I came...?"

 

"Yo." Touji replied. "But don't worry about it. It's not unusual for her to be absent, and you probably wouldn't have gotten to know her much even if she'd been here. Like I said, as I said, she's a little weird and not really sociable."

 

"That's true..." Hikari added. "I made an effort to try and integrate her more into our class at the beginning, but I couldn't really figure her out.... It's good that she seems to have made at least one friend for now... And it's nice that _you_ made new friends so quickly, Yamagishi-san. I was a little worried at first... Even though nothing came of it in the end, it was pretty cool that you tried to involve them in the project. I didn't expect such exemplary behavior from you boys, you're usually not that... mature..."

 

"What's that supposed to mean..?!" Before Touji's indignation could be turned into an argument, Nagato decided to redirect it it and make sure everyone stayed on topic: "Thank you, but when it comes down to it, it was Shinji who invited Yamagishi-san to join us. I guess it's just like when he asked to others to spend time with me back in the day..."

 

"He can be really thoughtful sometmes." Hikari agreed. "And to think that I would have taken him for a loner back when he first transferred in..."

 

" _That's_ exactly why." Kensuke assessed. "I guess he just knows what it's like to be on your own, so he can relate..."

 

"But wait..." Touji followed up on this point. "Aren't you in league with Shikinami?"

 

"It's true that Asuka-san often complains about Ikari-kun, but I think deep down she actually likes him."

 

"Are you serious?" Touji replied, lightly barbed. "Even a blind dude could see that she can't stand him in the slightest. She practically goes out of way to make his life harder..."

 

"Maybe, but in doing that she's going to see him and spending time with him... I'm her best friend, I can tell. Us girls can tell that sort of stuff, don't we, Yamagishi-san? ...Yamagishi-san?!"

 

While she had tried with steadily diminishing success to keep her eyes open and her head upright up until that point, Mayumi was barely conscious at the time when her companions stopped in their tracks – It hit them that she hadn't been participating in the conversation for quite some time at that point.

 

She muttered something unintelligible when Hikari and with her the whole nicely ordered class ceased their forward stride, but her voice was too weak and too quiet to be understood.

 

"This isn't just the shock of the bang, is it...?" Touji noted, speaking out the obvious. Hikari reacted immediately and laid her free hand on the forehead of the sickly bookworm. "Oh, my gosh, she's burning up... We should be taking her to the school nurse right away..."

 

"Except she's probably already in the shelter..." Kensuke realized.

 

"I know that, too." Touji clarified. "But what the hell are we supposed to do...? This has to happen now of all times..." As a rather emotional person, he only managed extremely miserably to hide his worry.

 

"Well..." Nagato spoke seriously but with restraint: "Kensuke just said it himself. The school nurse is in the shelter like everyone else. So the shelter is the place we should be going, immediately. There will surely be enough people there to turn to, panic won't help us now. We have to go, the fight could be starting at any given moment, and you must have heard about the devastation from day before yesterday..."

 

"Makes sense." Touji took care of the weakened girl, who didn't seem to notice what was happening around her anymore. She didn't quite seem to understand what he did when he carefully laid her on the floor to pick her up and bridal-carry her from there, but because of her condition, he could not resist him very much - he felt a bit awkward about lifting up a girl like that, especially one that seemed to be his best mate's new flame. He kind of felt like he'd have to apologize to both of them afterwards – but it wasn't like she would be able to walk very far on her own in her current condition.

 

Hikari, however, noticed in an almost frighteningly sudden way that Touji with Mayumi in his arms almost had something heroic about him, like a knight in shining armor.

 

The train of uniformed students started moving again, this time in even greater haste.

 

Kensuke, too, looked over the pale girl with a ponderous glance. "It seems like our project would have been doomed to begin with, even without the angel's attack..."

 

And though Mayumi just barely registered his statement on the verge of her delirium, she began to have her doubts about it, even if or precisely because her ability to think clearly was very impaired at the time...

 

\---

 

When Misato reached her associated platform in Central Dogma, there was already a busy hustle and bustle all around, not that she hadn't expected it. She had practically come stumbling through the door and was now exhaustedly gasping for air, indicating that she had obviously hurried all the way here out of sense of guilt - her getup made it clear that the alarm had caught her at a very bad time, and likewise indicated that she had left everything behind to rush to headquarters - apparently the head of the operations department had just been getting ready for her protégé's school party, which had of course been cancelled by now.

 

She was in one of those tight Chinese dresses with the decorated clasps and the lateral slits reaching from the bottom to the hips, a so-called qipao, which she first had to find out through strategic googling so she could order it online - ironically, she'd bought it especially for today's festival which would now never take place. The flatteringly cut, shiny-black garment with its golden closures and the red floral print on it had been intended as a kind of "fan service gag" for the boys, but felt patently riduclous ridiculous now that she actually had to look professional. The red uniform jacket, which she had put on quickly in order to soften her perceived nakedness, would perhaps have mitigated the effect if there hadn't been more embarrassing details, such as her only partly finished hairdo, the high heels, which she was now carrying in her hands rather than on her feet anddistinctly ruined, semi-transparent footies, or her lips half painted rose-red which she had been adorning just as she'd been rudely disturbed by the unexpected ring of her cellphone, judging by the slight smudges documenting that fateful moment.

 

Through Aoba's involvement, the matter of the school festival had also become known all around headquarters, which is why even among the technicians a certain dismay spread when the outfit reminded them of the obvious, which hung in the air between the five people on the platform, but nevertheless remained unspoken - apparently they could not even grant these children this little degree normality – But such was the nature of tragedies, they made short work of any plans they made contact with and refused to show up on an orderly shedule (with the possible exception of hay fever and the female period)

 

"...What about the EVAs...?" Misato asked immediately, still out of breath.

 

"EVA 00 is manned and ready to launch." Hyuuga reported immediately. "The other two children are already on their way into their plugs."

 

"Very good. Situation report! What's our status so far?"

 

"According to the sensors, it's clearly pattern blue." Reported Maya.

 

"The reading just showed up on block ten, out of the blue, right in the middle of town. Evacuation and bunkering operations are underway." Hyuuga continued.

 

"The angel has not yet taken action to attack, but it's positioned almost exactly above the main shaft." Aoba finished the report.

 

"Hm..." it came from Misato, who had meanwhile folded her arms and thoughtfully fumbled around the sleeves of her jacket. "He seems to have used his'invisibility' this time to sneak up on us... Does that mean this thing is serious now?"

 

"In any case, it means that the last fight must have served some purpose..." concluded Dr Akagi.

 

"The EVAs are ready now."interjected Ibuki.

 

"Good." Misato replied with satisfaction. "Launch EVAs 01 and 02 and deploy them at a safe distance... I think shafts 9-D and 9-C should do it. Eva 00 stays behind for now."

 

"Understood, Captain."

 

 

"Okay," Asuka clarified now that the'boring' details of the briefing were complete: “I'm telling you in advance, daddy's boy, don't get in my way. This time it's _my_ turn, last time you took next to forever to bring that thing doen! I will give the angel a swift, painful end!"

 

"Don't underestimate it..." Shinji warned, distantly worried about his impetuous comrade.

 

Apparently, no one ever told her that pide goeth before a fall. "You're the one underestimating _me_. You want to bet I can get the monster in ten minutes tops?"

 

Shinji sighed."...This isn't a competition, Shikinami..."

 

"Spoilsport!" she moaned, almost childishly offended.

 

"Well, at least we're rid of First Child, so we can both have a lot of fun out there together," she said in an aggressively giggling manner, emphasizing the'fun' as if she meant something much more indecent than saving the earth.

 

She was basically making fun of him again. But still, she said 'we.'

 

"I think you can make yourself a little useful by covering for me."

 

"I'll do my best."

 

"Well, I should hope so!"

 

\----

 

Even if the largest of them had been retracted beneath the surface, the remaining skyscrapers of Tokyo-3 still formed something like a forest for objects of the size of angels and Evangelions to move in; Unlike last time in the open field, the pipe-cleaner angel was not as easy to spot despite its enormous size.

Shinji and Asuka did not see it at first glance, but had to look around first and orient themselves, since Misato had deliberately placed them some distance away for their own safety. Finally, they spotted the insect-like creature floating directly over the entry point to the main shaft.

 

Shinji shouldn't have been surprised to find that it had completely regenerated itself, showing no trace of the damage from the last fight.

 

It was discouraging, especially when he recalled how difficult it had been to damage the monster at all... Had his efforts been completely in vain?

 

No, no, that line of thinking wasn't going to be of any help, and Misato and Asuka would probably tell him the same.

 

He had decided that he would become a stronger person from now on, and what better way to start than to destroy the angel for good this time.

 

He still didn't know how to accomplish that, but at least the angel didn't seem to have done too much to take advantage of the favorable position afforded to it by its mysterious invisibility - at headquarters, they had initially considered considered sending up EVA 00 an a vanguard to stall the angel with conventional weapons, albeit ineffective ones, until Shinji and Asuka arrived, but in the end none of this had been necessary - the being seemed content to simply rotate on the spot in a passive manner and wriggling its limbs at seemingly arbitrary intervals. Shinji didn't know whether to classify them as legs or feelers – Anything concerning the 'legs' of a floating creature was a purely philosophical consideration anyways.

 

After the experiencing of the angel's tenacity in the last fight, Misato had equipped the Second and Third Children with the only weapons that had worked last time, i.e. a flamethrower and a machine gun - There had been no dispute about the distribution of the weapons since Shinji still felt more comfortable with a ranged weapon, while Asuka of course could not resist the brute force of a flamethrower.

 

You could tell from the intercom's video feed that she could hardly wait to get going - when she pointed her gun at the target right after leaving the EVA elevator, Misato warned her not to do anything stupid, and Asuka, of course, took every kind of criticism as an insult.

 

But even Shinji felt anxious to destroy the enemy once and for all, albeit for other reasons. He couldn't wait for the exact second when the danger for him, his friends, comrades-in-arms and the rest of humanity would finally be over.

 

The transmissions from the depths of the earth gave an idea of why Misato hesitated to give the order to attack - she too did not trust the way in which the angel seemed to be presenting itself on a silver platter.

 

Somewhere she had the feeling that the beast was mocking her, even though she could think to herself how meaningless this assumption was – That thing might was probably not even aware of her existence, let alone the concept for mockery. It knew nothing of her hatred and the reasons for her revenge, which may now have led her to project the human qualities of an adversary onto the beast - she might as well attribute lightning and thunder to angry gods, but the monster's indifference provoked her all the more.

 

"What's it doing?" Misato asked in the approximate direction in which most of her colleagues were gathered. "It's right above us, so why isn't it attacking? Is it waiting for us to make the first strike?"

 

"The MAGI don't understand, and neither do I" Dr. Akagi admitted that she had been maltreating the keys beyond the shoulders of her slightly worried looking young assistant for some time with growing frustration. Ritsuko tried her best to hide how unpleasant it was for her to speak these words - admitting helplessness meant exposing oneself to criticism and showing weakness, which did not at all fit the idea of herself as the one responsible for sorting this out.

 

"Alright. It's not everyday that we get to hear you say that." Misato admitted. "That _does_ have me worried. ... What exactly is it don't you understand exactly?" Despite her question, although she didn't really hope to get a grasp on it before the nearest person with a PhD did..

 

 

"Well, on the outside, the angel looks as if he were standing still, but according to these readings, it's been slowly but steadily building up nearly enough energy to tear a small hole into the universe ever since it appeared - And I have no clue as to where all that energy might be going. The target's metabolism, insofar as an angel can be said to have one, is running at full steam. Its internal energy and temperature are steadily increasing, and the process as a whole seems atypical for angels as we've encountered them so far.".

 

"Could it be charging up some kind of a particle beam?"

 

"Not unless it intends to self-destruct. There is nothing to suggest that the energy spike is being projected out of the angel's body."

 

Disbelieving, Misato and the Children looked at the messenger on their respective screens. But then, at least the former seemed to have come to a decision - every other emotion in her face gave way to consummate professionalism.

 

"Whatever it is doing, it most certainly isn't going to change our situation for the better..... I suggest we interrupt while we still can."

 

"As a scientist, I regret that we will never know what end result of this process might have been like, but you're probably right..."

 

"Good. Have you found the core yet?"

 

"No... Even the readjustments we made to the sensors this morning proved useless... The mysteries compound. With this level of activity going on, the angel would have to producing a ton of energy, which should have rendered the location of its power source patently obvious, but..."

 

"The core is still unaccounted for, isn't it...?" The Head of Operations didn't like it any more than her colleague did, but none of them could tell how much time they had left.

 

"Attack!" ordered Misato.

 

"Finally!" Asuka exclaimed, right on cue. Before her superior had finished talking, and without paying the slightest attention to Shinji, she unlocked the flamethrower and jumped, light-footed as she channeled titanic amounts of force from the Evangelion, moving the massive colossus around her as if the tarmac of Tokyo-3's streets were nothing but a single giant trampoline, leaving behind deep footprints and broken pavement at every step, as if she could destroy everything she touched.

 

She bridged the distance only three jumps, taking full advantage of her high synch rate. Despite the humongous size of the EVA's hefty body, she made it move with all the grace and fluidity of a delicate, incredibly perfectionist ballet dancer, and just as Unit Two's toes touched down on the ground for the final time, she grasped the flamethrower's activation lever, having previously pointed its muzzle straight at the angel during her deadly freestyle dance.

 

She was tired of that damned Third Child taking all the credit and playing the big strong man all the time – This was the 21th century after all, she was perfectly capable of protecting herself. That she did not win the last fight was not her fault, but that of the idiots that hadn't even given her the chance to participate. Now that she was on the battlefield, she would finally seize the opportunity she had so often been denied or deprived of : She would finally get to show them what she was made of.

 

The grin on her lips craved the applause she had been imagining for years before her arrival here.

 

In a fraction of a blink of an eye, her grip around the lever solidified, then she quickly and irrevocably pulled it down, her facial expression changed to a wild, predatory grimace.

 

But the great slayer was denied her alotted prey.

 

What saved her life were not the shouts of "Asuka, stop" from both Third Child and several voices from headquarters, but her own reflexes, conditioned by by years of training:

Had it taken even a fraction of a second longer for her to react, EVA 02 would have been impaled in multiple sensitive places.

As it was, she only managed a rather ungraceful rear-drop drop rather than an orderly duck. She hit the ground, pricked by a lot of small traffic systems and overturned cars, s left lying there with the grace of a piece of clothing lying on the floor of a student stall.

 

A loud, cracking sound had triggered her primal flight drive, something somewhere between crackling plastic and the breaking of an eggshell.

Only when the worst of the pain had faded did she come to look up and realize what she had just retreated from.

 

And as she did so, her breath caught in her throat, right there between the trickles glass, dust and concrete debris, shocked by her previous ignorance of the broad, pointed spines that had almost pierced her EVA right where a person would have their vital organs. If she had tried to sit back up before realizing what had happened, she might have died a few hundred milliseconds ago.

 

She wanted to grab her flamethrower, but at some point she had dropped it involuntarily and now, it was just outside the reach of the EVA's red hands.

If she wanted to get away from those spines, she would be forced to crawl very slowly, very carefully and very low from under the angel - she was at the enemy's mercy... but it remained almost more static than before, without the slightest movement, without the slightest hint of sound.

 

"What... happened?" Shinji asked confusedly.

 

 

Admittedly, he had seen what was happening much more closely than the ladies and gentlemen at headquarters, but that didn't mean he understood it. He wanted to go and do something the way he had planned to, but how could he do that if he had no idea what was even going on?

 

In one moment, Asuka raced past him to attack the angel, and in the next, the angel's bristles had expanded into hard, firm thorns or spines by the surface of a dark ellipsoid that had formed when the angel suddenly expanded like a bolt of lightning, out of the blue, to a multiple of its original size, penetrating the adjacent buildings with its body and spines.

With the naked eye, one could not determine whether anything remained of the area that had just disappeared into the ellipsoid. Looking into the angel's body, one could still see to some extent how the spines continued inward beyond the shell-like, semitransparent layer, but the further one tried to follow them with one's gaze, the more they seemed to sink into the diffuse darkness within.

 

At first Shinji thought that the angel's sudden expansion was an attack directed at Asuka, but once she had dodged it and begun her retreat, the angel remained inert once more.

 

"What the hell... is that?" Misato demanded to know.

 

"According to MAGI, it's very similar to the embryonic stage of the last, ninth angel."

 

"It's... regressed?" Misato asked.

 

Her colleague shook her head. "No. I'm afraid it's the exact opposite..."

 

"The... opposite...?" Misato repeated, thinking hard about what her friend might mean. She thought she could almost feel the solution in the back corners of her skull, but could not really grasp what particular point she was meaning to imply.

 

But the realization experience hit her even harder when Ritsuko spoke it in her place:

 

"It's development isn't moving backward, Misato... It's moving forward. It's undergoing metamorphosis, much like an insect."

 

Asuka suspiciously eyeballed the angel, having since escaped from its vicinity. "Yuck, that explains a lot...!"

 

"You mean it's like a butterfly? The form we have fought so far was a larval stage, this is now the pupa or the cocoon, and when it breaks open..."

 

"The fully developed adult insect appears, the imago..." completed Dr Akagi.

 

"Ew, bugs... Why can't you come up with less disgusting examples?" Misato moaned." You could have compared it to a tadpole and a frog...."

 

"Captain Katsuragi." said the scientist, speaking the name firmly to remind her friend that she was on duty and had to behave accordingly. "Because of the strong similarity between the cocoon phase and the embryonic stage, I strongly advise against attacking or otherwise disturbing the target in its current state. It's possible that any wrong move could lead to Third Impact... it's just like the Ninth Angel."

 

"Except we don't have the means to move or capture it this time." Reported Aoba. "In its present condition, it's larger than anything we would be able to transport or secure. Besides, the crysalis might break open if we try to separate it from the buildings in its perimeter."

 

“...which of course could mean a Third Impact..." Misato stated soberly. "So we have no choice but to wait until it's ready for us!" Their anger could be clearly seen in the scornful undertone of their summary of the situation. "Great, so the angel got us right where he wants us..."

 

That's when Misato heard the subcommander's voice coming from behind her.

"But if Dr. Akais suspicions are correct...then the angel's body would have to be in the process of restructuring itself, perhaps even in a state of partial dissolution... If they're watching the angel during the metamorphosis, shouldn't they be able to find the core?"

 

Hyuuga shook his head. "Impossible, sir. Right now we can't even tell if the target even **has** a core... Our sensors can't penetrate the cocoon..."

 

"Then it is impossible to predict how long the metamorphosis will last?" Misato asked.

 

"Well, mh..." Lt. Ibuki did not sound very certain. "Due to the problems mentioned before, our estimates might not be very accurate, due to the heat radiation pattern emanating from the angel's cocoon, the MAGI believe that it will be a lengthy process.”

 

"They _believe_ it?" Misato asked in more perplexed a way than she had intended to. "Since when can computers believe anything?"

 

Ritsuko decided to relieve her young assistant of the burden presented by the question:

"The way MAGI works is modeled on human thought processes." she explained without disclosing more about this topic than was absolutely necessary "Moreover, their internal architecture is designed according to the Trinity principle, which basically means that they consist of three independent supercomputers... and if they do not agree 100%, one can say with some justification that they do not 'alculate' or 'predict' the result of the calculations, but rather 'estimate' or 'believe' it. Most scientific applications nowadays usually provide probabilities instead of concrete values anyway".

 

"Computers that believe..." Misato shook her head. "Since the angels have returned, I somehow feel more and more inclined to believe even the most scandalous rubbish... Just be careful that your electronic friends don't come to life and take over the world... Anyway, what exactly do you mean by 'lengthy'?”

 

"At least several hours." Reported Maya.

 

"Then there's no reason for the kids to stay out there waiting..... Until further notice, we'll leave the sheduling of the battle to the Tenth Angel. Lower your alert from blue to red. Also, I want that oversized cicada out there under 24-hour surveillance. If that thing moves a single µ, I want you to set off the mother of all alarms!

 

...Any objections, Commander? Subcommander?"

 

"No." Ikari just answered. "Just make sure the pilots are always ready for action. They all have to stay on site at all times."

 

"Understood, sir."

 

\----

 

"Tell me, how is Yamagishi-san?"

 

"Same as before..."

 

The word Touji had chosen was a rather flowery euphemism, not to say a small, well-meaning lie, in relation to what he was trying to describe.

 

The worry on both of their faces originated from one and the same subject: Their newest classmate, Mayumi Yamagishi.

 

The boys had gotten her one of the emergency blankets from one of the supply boxes that could be found in the emergency shelters at regular intervals, and once the class representative had managed to track down the school nurse and take her to see Mayumi, she had left them some medication for her fever. Actually, the little remedy should have lowered the bookworm's body temperature by now,but instead it had even risen by a full degree - and _not_ remained about the same, as Touji had just tried to suggest to Hikari.

 

It was now at 41° Celsius - Mayumi could hardly have chosen a worse time to get sick.

 

Accordingly, Hikari and the boys had tucked her in her in and put a cloth soaked in cool water on her forehead, but so far none of the measures seemed to have noticeably improved the condition of the pale, weakened girl.

 

The runnels of water flowing from the damp cloth over her face united with the sweat droplets which were at home there; And even though the nurse had assured that she was only sleeping, she had not woken up since her condition had taken its noticeable turn for the worse on the way here, but occasionally, she had muttered something vague which none of them understood.

 

But even without the detail he had concealed from Hikari so as not to worry her any further, since she had already had enough to babysit more or less the whole class, her concern was visibly great, so that she settled down next to Touji and her recumbent classmate. "Oh, dear..."

 

Of course, she saw the situation as her area of responsibility.

 

"...I'd better get another damp cloth..."

 

But Touji declined: "No need, class rep. I took care of it myself a few minutes ago..."

 

"Should I take over for you?"

 

"Thanks for the offer, but no thanks. Don't worry, I'll be fine, I've had some experience taking care of the sick after sitting at Sakura Chan's bedside for a several months..."

 

"Sakura-chan? That's your sister's name, right?"

 

"Yep..." Touji confirmed, leaning back slightly on his arms to contemplate the ceiling of the shelter. "Please don't tell Shinji, he's probably still blaming himself for the whole stupid thing, but to be honest, the doctors aren't sure if she'll ever walk again... They were quite optimistic a few weeks ago, but when they wanted to start physiotherapy, it turned out that her bones had grown together in an unfavorable position... She'll probably have to go under the knife again sooner or later..."

 

"T-that's terrible..."

 

Hikari was too modest to claim that she could understand this while her own sisters were sitting safely in the shelters assigned to their respective schools at that moment, but the very idea of having to cart little Nozomi around in a wheelchair sent cold chills down her spine. "I'm terribly sorry for you..."

 

"I know. If only that could help my sister..."

 

"Don't be so pessimistic, buddy! Nothing's for certain yet, maybe she'l get well after all.” That was Kensuke, who had just arrived at the makeshift 'camp' at ayumi's bedside with Nagato in tow.

 

"Aida-kun! Mitsurugi-kun" Hikari took note of their presence.

 

"There you are!" Touji continued. "...So? Did you find out why this is taking so long?"

 

Kensuke pulled out his faithful multifunctional camera with a grin, demonstratively pulling the antenna a bit further apart. "Apparently they stopped the fight because the newest angel has turned into an oversized porcupine and are afraid that it will blow up when they nudge it... Looks like it's gonna be a long time..."

 

"Damn..." Touji murmured looking down at the delirious schoolgirl.

 

"So I take it from your reaction that Yamagishi-san is still not doing any better?" Nagato inquired worriedly.

 

"No, unfortunately not..." Touji replied. "This is like the worst possible timing. Under normal circumstances we could have taken her to a hospital long ago or at least to her parents... I guess that's what it means to be living in a war zone..."

 

"You two, can't you go and see if you can find the nurse again?" Hikari suggested.

 

"We'll try." Nagato, insured. "I was about to look for her anyway, for... other reasons." He ran his fingers through his hair strands to make room for his palm, before placing it right where his forehead was still hidden behind a bandage.

 

"What is it, Mitsurugi-kun?" Hikari wanted to know.

 

Actually Nagato didn't want to talk about it, was not the time to bother the others with small concerns like that, especially since his problem was infinitely milder than Mayumi's situation. It was his own fault for mentioning it, but now she was interested and worse, beginning to see it as a responsibility.

 

"Oh, it's nothing..." he tried to play it down anyway, forcing himself to smile.

 

"Just a bit of a common headache..."

 

"Go ahead and swallow whatever the lady tells you to," Touji replied. "One sick person is more than enough!"

 

Yes, he knew that, there was not actually any need to tell him that...

 

When he considered that the scars hidden under this bandage were the handwriting of a brain surgeon, there was a possibility that it could be something else, something that a simple school nurse couldn't fix...

 

The strange thing was that the wound had been surprisingly painless until just the moment before, and it wasn't really a classic headache either, but felt more like a kind of echoing heartbeat, a deep resonance in the process of starting up as a response to something else...

 

\---

 

 

What, two?

 

The being classified as Leatha grinned amused amid strands of twitching flesh.

 

Once upon a time, she would have called this a surprise.

 

As she was not able to continue her work anyway, she decided that it might be worth taking a close look at the whole thing.

 

___

  1. Imagine Misato's Qipao like the one in that one ANIMA artwork

  2. So, it seems that the Angel is making our heroes wait! The nerve! Seems like Misato will have to dig out some board games to entertain the pilots until the Angel deems it fit to dignify them with its presence. See how that goes in Chapter 2.14: [Before The Storm]




 


	33. 2.14: [Before the Storm]

**2.14: [Before The Storm]**

 

** _I'm a soldier, born to stand_ **

_In this waking hell I am_

_Witnessing more than I can compute_

**_Pray myself we don't forget_ **

_Lies, betrayed and the oppressed_

_Please give me the strength to be the truth  
_   
  


**_We are facing the fire together_ **

_If we don't, we'll lose all we have found_

**_Save your tears_ **

_For the day_

_When our pain is far behind_

_On your feet_

_Come with me_

_We are soldiers stand or die  
_ **_Save your fears_ **

_Take your place_

_Save them for the judgement day_

_Fast and free_

_Follow me_

_Time to make the sacrifice_

_We rise or fall  
_   
  


  
  


_-Yoko Kanno/Origa, ‚Rise‘_

 

_\----_

 

 

_ "UNO UNO!" Asuka shouted triumphantly as she laid the last card in her hands onto the pile in the middle of the table as slowly as possible, full of gloating, to the background of Misato's exclamations of „Oh noes!“  _

 

_ Considering her initial refusal to engage in „undignified children's crap“ such as board and card games, it appeared that the young lady had protesteth too much. _

_ Only by issuing an order and reminding her of the last time she'd neglected her cooperation goal had Misato been able to persuade (or rather, force) her to participate, but before long, she had hit a lucky streak and appeared to be relishing it immensely, though her enjoyment was without doubt much compounded by Lady Luck's evident disdain for both Shinji and Misato.  _

 

_ The idea of playing games to kill the time until the final battle had been Misato's.  _

_ After straightening out her hair, finishing her overdue paperwork and reviewing the few morsels of scientific data that Ritsuko and Lt. Ibuki had been able to extract from the angel silent outline, she'd decided to check up on the pilots, who had been accommodated in a small room near the cages while the angel kept biding its time.  _

 

_ There, she found exactly what she had feared: The pilots were each in one of the corners of the triangular room, as far apart from each other as possible, and occupied themselves with everything except their fellow pilots - Shinji hung onto his walkman, Asuka sat in front of her handheld console, and Rei quietly devoted herself to reading a thick doorstopper about some scientific topic. _

 

_ Since the room was completely unfurnished, they sat on the dark floor, far away from the NERV emblem in the middle of it, where the frosty vibes diligently produced by all involved reached their highest concentration - as Misato then learned from Rei, whom she had asked because she could probably be considered the most neutral, reliable source, this constellation had come to pass when Shinji had tried to involve Rei in the conversation he had been having with Asuka, who took offense to that. This had sparked an argument between Misato's protégés who had then moved into their respective corners and had left Rei where she had been all along. At first, Shinji had attempted to appease Asuka until his patience could take no more – in a way, it was almost impressive that Asuka had succeeded at reaching its limit.  _

 

_ In her constant effort to inoculate the three with social skills, she had then called Rei a good girl and announced that they would all spend some quality time together to strengthen the cohesion of the pilot team, and that they were owed a little fun and games to make up for the lack of school festival. _

 

_ Their initial reactions had been fairly discouraging: Asuka stubbornly crossed her arms, Shinji's expression suggested that he'd taken the announcement for a bad omen, and while Rei had not protested, she hadn't looked all that enthusiastic either.  _

 

_ Regardless, Misato had put the blue haired girl in charge of supervising her comrades in her absence (since she appeared to be the most mature one of the bunch in this context) and returned a few moments later with a stack of board games and card decks, everything from Uno, Skat, Monopoly, Chess, Queen, Four-Wins to the Settlers of Catan and the latest creations of the Ravensburger home entertainment company, including the Game of the Year from 2014, which Misato had praised many times. _

 

_ As described before, Asuka ended up enjoying herself despite her initial protest, especially since she could never resist an activity in which one could defeat others. _

 

_ Nonetheless, Misato was horrified to discover that none of the three children even knew the rules for Ludo - Did those three actually expect her to believe that they had never seen a board game in their whole lives? _

_ To be honest, her own relationship with fun and games had very much broken down after second impact and not been rekindled until much later, but at least she could recall a time before, whereas these children had been made to lead the lives of soldiers from an early age, or even been raised with that goal in mind, which only increased the weight on her conscience now that she was undoubtedly leading them down a path toward yet more suffering.  _

 

_ That's why she felt all the more obliged to do her best to offer the children at least a touch of normality and took the time to explain the rules of the game to them while trying to foster conversation at the same time, trying to start up a casual chat about their school lives while they sat here dressed in their plug suits, ready for a battle that could start at any moment.  _

 

_ In that regard, Asuka was one of the easier ones to handle, she was already very talkative by nature, the only challenge was in making sure that she didn't start bullying anyone else.  _

_ She had a much harder time trying to get any conversations out of Rei, who seemed to communicate entirely in one-liners when the topic didn't concern her duties as a pilot.  _

 

_ It wasn't even shyness, but rather... Well, Misato couldn't really name it, she was different from any other problem child she had ever heard of. A truly strange girl. -Misato couldn't help but consider how little she really knew about her. Of course she tried to build up a good working relationship with all the children, and she'd never encountered any real problems with Rei, but she couldn't say that she understood her either, and blaming it on the fact that they simply didn't live together felt like a cop-out.  _

 

_ From the surveillance logs, she knew that Rei never ever seemed to bring anyone home with her and tended to spend most of her afternoons alone at her room , but at the same time, it didn't really seem to bother her or make her unhappy in a way that would affect her performance and availability as a pilot.  _

_ With the other two pilots, there had been a clear deficit in supervision and guardianship that made it easy to justify inserting herself – One could easily argue how it was better for both their own interests and those of the project if they were live with a trusted NERV employee to watch nurture and motivate them rather than being left to their own devices, but in Rei's case, there wasn't as much of an obvious gap for Misato to slip into: The girl always did what was asked of her and though the commander might not have filled or taken care of all of the classic parental roles, they clearly had some kind of bond between them. _

 

_ Either way, it wouldn't do her any harm to spend a little more time, and it certainly couldn't hurt for her commanding officer to get to know her if only to better assess her mindset – Yet despite all the many tasks that brought them to the same times and places, Misato couldn't read her at all, even after all this time.  _

 

_ During a round of "Trivial Pursuit" it became apparent that although she had mastered scientific and technical subjects well beyond what a girl her age would have learned in school, the First Child did not have the slightest idea about movies, sports or pop culture -  _

_ To the extent that she couldn't say which famous sci-fi frachise was associarted with the Sentence “Luke, I am your father.” _

_ At this point, Misato couldn't help laughing out loud because she had involuntarily imagined the Commander in a certain Star Wars cosplay – something she soon regretted when the Children worriedly asked her whether she was alright.  _

_ She couldn't really deny that she totally deserved the embarrassment. _

 

_ \---- _

 

_ The angel left them enough time to try through pretty much everything Misato in Misato's collection, and as time went on, at least Shinji and Asuka definitely loosened up a bit and in the end, they all had a great time together . _

 

_ This morning, all three members of the Katsuragi household laughed together, and perhaps came a little closer to strengthening their bonds – admittedly, there was a good chance that any good cheer chared between herself and the children was of a purely superficial nature, but at least it had served to give them all a chance to relax and forget about the slow crawl of time while distracting them from the imminent battle.  _

 

_ No man knoweth neither the day nor the hour when the dreaded alarm bells would finally go off, but in her opinion, the least they could do was to make use of the time they had left – As things were, no one could say for sure whether today wasn't the very last day left in the history of mankind.  _

 

_ As far as Rei was concerned, Misato was at a loss. She hadn't complained or given any indication of being bored, but neither had there been any signs that she had been enjoying herself in any way. Misato's endeavor to involve her in a longer conversation had been fruitless, and even Shinji, seemed to have a knack for it, could only establish limited communication with her... _

_ Misato honestly didn't know what to make of it.  _

 

 

_ Rrrrrrrrring! _

 

_ Rrrrrrrrring!  _

 

_ In the end, the once viscous flow of time had passed them by much too quickly, almost as if finding an acceptable middle ground was an impossibility, an arcane point as difficult to find as certain parts of the female anatomy, and as easy to miss as the point of neutrality in acid-base titration. _

 

_ Knocking over a couple of pegs by accident as she reached for the jacked she's previously removed, Misato immediately picked up her phone and told Asuka to be quiet again, especially since the call might be important just as the redhead had begun to argue the somewhat dubious claim that her pieces had been 'right there'.  _

 

_ "...Katsuragi here. Any changes in the angel? - Oh. Yes, Commander." _

 

_ Even if the man was only present over a telephone line, Shinji could not help but freeze in his tracks.. _

 

_ He hardly dared to breathe, for fear that any noise he made could reach the other end of the line as a disturbance.  _

 

_ Asuka had not such quals and asked rather loudly if the battle was about to start, which, for Shinji, was almost physically painful to observe.  _

 

_ "What? Yes, I understand. I'll tell him. Yes, of course, sir. Yes, he is." _

 

_ 'Him'? Considering that he was the only male individual in this room at the moment, it suddenly occurred to Shinji that his father might have actually asked for him, almost as if he gave a damn. _

 

_ No, no, he had to tame those reactions, it would do no good to harbor expectations, to imagine things that would never happen, and conceive of questions he would much rather choke on than actually ask. _

 

_ "Rei?" Misato then turned to the aforementioned First Child after she had closed her cell phone again. "Yes, Captain?" _

 

_ "The Commander has requested your presence. He says he's done with his meeting and wants to invite you to lunch. But make sure to report to Ritsuko first." _

 

_ "Understood." _

 

_ She walked silently out of the room. _

 

_ Misato understood  _ _ this  _ _ even less – try as she might, she couldn't really figure our the relationship between the First Child and her superior.  _

_ From the similarities in their body language and their (absence of) facial expressions, one could be led to suspect that the two were somehow related. There were all kinds of small things, like an affinity for sitting at windows and staring out of them, or the way they always stuck their fingers together while leaning forward over a table....  _

_ Had there been any overt physical resemblance, Misato might have been tempted to conclude that she might be the Commander's secret lovechild or something , but since they didn't look particularly alike, the issue might not be that conveniently clear-cut after all. _

_ He did treat her more warmly than almost everyone else, but that was no a particularly high bar to set, indeed, there were times where his treatment of Rei seemed downright callous in ways that should have been incompatible with anything other than professional pragmatism.  _

 

_ Faced with Shinji's clearly unhappy face looking past her at the door through which the First Child had just disappeared, she noticed that, frankly, she was a little bit angry... The boy could use a little positive attention from his old man, if not for his sake, then at least for "strategic" reasons... or were these only her personal unfulfilled wishes that spoke out and clouded her judgment? _

 

_ Anyways, she'd better distract the boy before Asuka had the opportunity to pound on him like a shark following the scent of blood. She really needed to come up with some idea to curb the girl's ego, for her own good as well.  _

 

_ "On the subject of lunch... I think we could use a little snack as well. I guess we're limited to the NERV canteen because you have to be ready and so on, but it's better than fighting on an empty stomach, right?" _

 

_ It wasn't a lie - she had completely forgotten all about the time and the hours normally scheduled for lunch were almost over - so a little snack couldn't hurt... _

 

_ \--- _

 

_ "Wait a minute, kids! I'm just gonna grab a coffee!" _

 

_ To be honest, she would much rather have a beer now, especially since it had been a while since the last one. But unfortunately, she was on duty now and would stay that way for quite a while. _

 

_ She could literally feel the imaginary little devil pricking her shoulder provocatively with its pitchfork over and over again in tune with the slight pangs of craving evident in the rest of her body.  _

 

_ But the world wouldn`'t save itself. "And please, try to get along for a while." _

 

_ Of course, as far as Asuka was concerned, that warning went in one ear and out the other.  _

 

_ She now sat alone with Shinji at a table near the large windows from which the remainder of the geofront could be seen below them, which might well have been the same one he had recently been sitting at with Rei. _

_ Maybe she was looking for a fight, or maybe she just wanted to make her opinion heard, and to force individual to listen to what she had to say, preferably someone who wouldn't think of complaining back at her. _

 

_ Well, actually she just wanted to chat with him and enjoy his company, but her own twisted ideas made that scenario tricky to realize - Even a trained psychiatrist would have found her a tough nut to crack, let alone a somewhat shy 14-year-old boy. _

 

_ "Honesty, the First Child is such a self-important cow. Did you see how she walked right past us as if we were nothing, all so she could go and suck up to the boss?" _

 

_ That didn't really help in lifting Shinji's spirits. _

 

_ All pretenses of good cheer that might have been left over from the board games has vanished the moment Rei got up to leave. _

 

_ He knew where she'd been going and he's really rather prefer it if Asuka didn't keep reminding him of it – but at the same time, he wouldn't dare contradict her or tell her to stop. Was it because he was a coward? Or was it because he was actually such a lowly piece of shit that he managed to be jealous and resentful of someone as... pure as Rei. _

 

_ This wasn't at all in accordance with his supposed resolution, but what was the point of it anyways? _

 

_ What if his father really just didn't care...? _

 

_ What if his attempts to get his attention were a Sisyphean task that had been doomed to failure from the beginning...? _

 

_ He... he didn't want to think about it... _

 

_ "Hello? I'm talking to you, Daddy's boy, I need you to listen to me and shut the fuck up. Or are you too good to sit here with us lowly mortals iin this plain old cantine? I bet you'd rather be with your Daddy and his pretty little princess somewhere on the executive floor!" _

 

_ One of these days, she would make another remark just like that, and he would oblige her by crawling into a hole, curling into a ball and laying down to die.  _

 

_ But could he blame her? _

 

_ She didn't understand... The older he got, the more Shinji was convinced that ignorance must be a kind of bliss. How h would like to have her kind of worries! _

 

_ "It's... it's not like that..." _

 

_ Asuka decorated her condescending half-grin with a slightly suspicious look. _

 

_ "Don't fuck with me, Third Child. Don't think, even for a second, that you're capable of that." _

 

_ Always that arrogance of hers, wearing him down just by placing herself so far above him... He's deluded himself into thinking that he`d somehow been getting closer to her, but in the end she didn't even use his name and only took note of him as a rival pilot... If only he had his stupid Walkman at hand right now! _

_ He really didn't want to hear it anymore at this moment... In the end she only managed to fan his anger, the quiet simmering which threatened to lose its latent character at any moment – He didn't want to end up saying something he might well come to regret at a time when he could no longer recant it.  _

 

_ Couldn't she just leave him alone for a few minutes? _

 

_ He just didn't feel like dealing with her now... but as usual, she seemed unable to even fathom the concept that not everyone was always crazy about her 24/7. _

 

_ "Of course it is '." She continued, rubbing more salt into the wound. _

 

_ It hurt, but if he would try to explain it to her, she'd only laugh at him. _

 

_ To show any sort of weakness in her presence was like painting a big, colorful target on his own body.  _

 

_ "I mean..." She held her laugh back, showing him exactly how ridiculous she thought him to be. "Please don't get me wrong, I mean, you've been getting the hang of it lately, but don't think they made you an EVA pilot because of your blinding awesomeness..." _

 

_ "If father really wanted to do me a favor..." he spoke without thinking or considering the possibilities, the mere mention of which would be too painful for him. "...then he wouldn't force me... to do something  _ _ awful _ _ like  _ _ **this** _ _!" _

 

_ Just now, he's sounded much more emotional, angry and tormented than he had intended. He hardly dared to look at her and instead stared at his hands resting on the tabletop, which he repeatedly opened and closed in a nervous gesture. _

 

_ "Hmph! Yeah, yeah, just go and play the cute little victim, but don't expect me to buy it!" _

 

_ Suddenly she looked straight at Shinji with eyes wide. _

 

_ "The self-pity act might be enough to get Misato and the others to kiss your ass, but don't expect any pity from me! So you say you were forced into awful things? Says the little prick who everyone here confuses with a big hero!" _

 

_ His words made her so mad... This little idiot had no idea what real life was and what real suffering was. _

 

_ And he didn't even have the courage to open his mouth and say something, but simply looked at her with wide, shocked eyes. _

 

_ Apparently he hadn't been expecting her response – It must have hit a nerve. Good. It was supposed to. And now that she'd struck gold, she wouldn't back off without taking her sweet time to twist the knife.  _

 

_ "I bet you secretly get off on playing the martyr! I bet you love it when everyone makes a big fuss about feeling sorry for you!" _

 

_ "N-No...!" Shinji protested in horror. "If... if I don't do it, then--" _

 

_ "Oh, we both know that nobody _ _ really _ _ gives a damn about the end of the world! You're doing all this just to have your own ass gilded, so you might as well stop pretending like it's different and show the world your true face!" _

 

_ "It's... it's not like that..." His reply was a hasty, reflexive move to defend himself, not something he was remotely convinced of. No wonder Asuka only needed one question to crush his last resistance: "So what's your real reason then? If I'm wrong, then why do you pilot??" _

 

_ That was the question he'd been asking himself all along. _

 

_ He was shocked by her indifference, how blatantly she'd thrown her disinterest in the entire rest of the world into his face, how thoughtless and selfish she could be, but who was he to blame her? _

 

_ What could he possibly say to counter her accusations that wouldn't just amount to digging himself deeper? How could he even be sure that she wasn't actually right? _

 

_ What if he truly wasn't any different from her? How would he know? _

 

_ And how would he know that this wasn't simply what she wanted him to believe, to assure herself of her own superiority, or just to prove that she could screw with him and get away with it?  _

 

_ All she ever did was to play games with his feelings... _

 

_ Why. Why. Why… _

 

_ He really couldn't say. _

 

_ Maybe... maybe she was right... _

 

_ Which meant that Nagato was wrong. _

 

_ Perhaps all those heroic traits that Misato, Nagato, Touji, Kensuke and Mayumi believed to see in him were just misconceptions, lies even. Maybe he really  _ _ was _ _ nothing but a selfish that had tricked everybody around him to the point that he was beginning to believe his own lies- _

 

_ He knew full well that he wasn't the hero they thought he was, and there was nothing he could do to change it.  _

_ He had never consciously pretended to be something he wasn't, but it was just like Asuka said – His excuse weren't believable.  _

 

_“ It can't have been _ _ that  _ _ awful to have this transferee girl following you around. You think she'd be interested in you if you hadn't swooped in and saved her with your EVA, like a knight in shining armor? You'd be  _ _ nothing _ _ without it. I had to earn this, but you? You've had this huge privilege just dumped into your lap, and you don't even realize it!”  _

 

 

_ Don't cry. She didn't want to cry. _

 

_ Not in front of this Daddy's boy, not when to do so would shatter the fiction that her words were exclusively about him. _

 

_ "Now you listen to me! I hate nothing more than fake people who are as phony as you!" _

 

_ And Misato. _

 

_ And the First Child. _

 

_ And herself. _

 

_ But at least he gave her the satisfaction of exerting power over him. That's a good boy. Maybe that idiot was finally learning his lesson. _

 

_ Oh, look at that, seems like he was about to burst into tears - Stupid wimp. _

 

_ Serves him right. _

 

_ He was so ungrateful, so stupid that sometimes she felt like beating him up until he stopped moving - Maybe one of these days, he would learn not to cross her... _

 

_ "I..." _

 

_ That was almost a sob. _

 

_ The question remained unanswered. _

 

_ Was that really...? _

 

_ Sure he... wanted to be noticed... he didn't want to be alone, and... to be appreciated. _

 

_ But didn't everybody? _

 

_ Wasn't it just human? _

 

_ Was a person not allowed to wish for love and affection? _

 

 

 

_ "I think I'll kick myself a horse! Have you two been fighting again?" _

 

_ "Whatever." Asuka returned brusquely and pulled out her Gameboy. _

 

_ Misato sighed. _

 

_ \----  _

 

_ Even visiting the boy's room was a matter of some tension in the current situation - you couldn't get rid of full body clothes like a plugsuit quite as quickly and put them over again as ordinary trousers, and there was always the possibility that the alarm sirens could start blaring just when he would be occupied by the uh, completion of such business. _

 

_ That's just how crazy his life had become. _

 

_ On his way back to the small lounge he dawdled a little, partly because there was no real motivation to pull him back there - he did not want to see Asuka now and he did not want to deal with Misato's well-intentioned advice and questions. All sorts of details caught his eye, but it was only in front of a glass pane through which one could look into the cage of EVA 01 that his steps stopped completely. _

 

_ There it was, his weapon, ready for a mission that would come sooner than he would like it. _

 

_ Yeah, his life had gone crazy. _

 

_ He could not deny Asuka's accusations because he was really not sure... not even about himself... _

 

_ He could not even rule out that the whole world was "wrong", as all these warnings were trying to suggest to him. _

 

_ It was all so much, so hard, he wished someone would approach him and take this burden off him, but for that he would have to tell that someone  _ _ everything _ _ , and that, he could not do. _

 

_ That would be crazy. _

 

_ So he had nothing to hold on to... nothing he could really follow... And wasn't that just the new normal nowadays? _

 

_ Would he have to keep on fighting forever...? _

 

_ Would he suffer more and more...? _

 

_ Despite all the time he had spent in this place, he still knew very little about the mysterious enemy floating above the city... or about the machine in which he was put almost every other day. _

 

_ Usually, he would simply be called and sent into combat or testing as if he himself were nothing more than a piece of automation, nothing more than a suitable interface between the Evangelion and the command center. _

 

_ At times, he didn't even understand half the things Dr. Akagi said. _

 

_ By that point, he had involuntarily wrapped his arms around his upper body as a freezing person might, but he only really became aware of it when the sound of footfalls shook him from his reverie, causing him to flinch. _

 

_ The pale, barely noticeable reflections on the glass pane told him enough - distorted spots of black and red and blue and white. His father and Ayanami. _

 

_ He did not dare to move, frightened even by the thought that the very sound of his breath might draw attention to him.  _

 

_ Every thought he could get a hold of ordered him to flee, but he could not move a muscle, only his heart was pounding like crazy, and even its sounds only added to his humiliation. _

 

_ He remained standing rigidly like a statue, hiding the agitated, restless wildness within his static form. _

 

_ He did not see the girl looking briefly in his direction as she and her companion walked past his back. _

 

_ He didn't turn around. _

 

_ The glance that the commander shot him without turning his head, only with his deep blue eyes so similar to him, remained safely hidden behind his non-reflective sunglasses in the dim light of the corridor. _

 

_ Had Shinji been able to see through it, he would have felt like looking into a mirror; _

 

 

_ But the only reflection that he did not evade was the one in the glass in front of his face, which showed him only a foolish, lost child that he did not want to see. _

 

_ The robot behind it was no consolation either - his reaction did not begin immediately after the steps of the two had faded away - He could not stand the thought that they could still be in the vicinity, aware that he had failed to notice them just because of his own carelessness. _

 

_ He could not quantify how long he stood there until he was sure that all sounds that he could still hear in any way had to have come from his imagination. _

 

_ Only then did some envious creator seem to press the "play button" again to gloat over how the boy at first only slowly came out of his rigidity, his arms only narrowly wrapped around his body like the faded spirit of a hug, like a blind man trying to imagine the colours of the sunset in vague descriptions without being able to "grasp" them properly.... _

 

_ A hug... no one had ever hugged him in all the long fourteen years of his life, least of all the man who had just walked past him like he'd done many times before. He had no idea what it felt like... _

 

_ Before he knew it, he was sobbing and whimpering softly, barely aware of the few tiny amounts of glittering, warm liquid that had collected at the corners of his eyes. _

 

_ If he had remained alone, he might have sunk down crying at this point, or he might not have; _

_ As it was, the question would remain unanswered. He was surprised by the presence of  _

_ another person and thus felt compelled to orientate himself to what this someone might think about him and his actions._

 

_ Not that this was made easy for him by any coincidence of fate – As mentioned previously, he was not used to any kind of touch in the slightest, and certainly not in significant other places than his hands, his only reaction to the actually well-meant, supportive hand on his shoulder was to shy away instinctively.  _

_ And that's how the person behind him – revealed to be a now somewhat remorseful-looking Misato still standing with her arm outstretched – got to witness something he would most certainly have hidden if he'd only had the time to think about it properly : His reddened, tear-stained face, warped by the pain and suffering he'd pushed aside for so long. _

 

_ "Shinji-kun? Is... is everything all right?" _

 

_ She didn't even have to ask.  
  
Not only because the answer was damn obvious, but also because she should have known him well enough by now to know that he would certainly not want to answer this question.  
  
She could not have failed to notice how his hands reached for the glass pane behind him and, perhaps unconsciously, pressed flat against it. The closer she came, the more he leaned against the wall.   
  
She took a step forward and opened her her arms in his direction, but his body stiffened even more, just like that of a lost child who wanted to run away from a scary thing that it didn't understand, or perhaps like some small, ridiculously cute little monkey that had fallen from its familiar tree and had now been cornered by a frightening predator. The slightest movement of his hands on the glass wall leading to the cage left behind a barely noticeable trail of sweat; Only then was Misato aware that it was he was afraid of her.  
  
It was difficult not to see it as a personal rejection, as a sign that she had not yet managed to gain his trust to a sufficient degree, as proof of her failure.  
  
Somewhere in the depths of her DNA, between tons and tons of gene scrap and harmful predispositions sat a maternal instinct preparing to take the lead; she didn't want to push him any further, but that was something to be undestood on more rational level terms, and she had always been more of an emotional person.  
  
It was difficult for her to stop her arms, instead of really pulling them back, there was a kind of embarrassed sinking.  
  
At least he seemed to have calmed down a bit - or was he just trying to control himself with all his strength?  
  
It wasn't hard for her to imagine why someone would run away from her, and knowing she knew she was supposed to be above it didn't make it any better.  
  
"What's the matter...?" she asked carefully, trying to get a warm smile. "...are you feeling down because your school festival got cancelled?"  
  
She could have slapped herself - of course it wasn't such a small thing... She could tell just by looking at him.  
  
She seemed to have interrupted him just as he was about to burst into tears.  
  
"...Or is it because of something Asuka said when you had a fight?"  
  
She felt ridiculous. "We... we really need to talk to her, don't we...? About the way she treats others..." She didn't buy that bullshit herself.  
  
How superficial did she have to be to think a little childish argument was the cause...? It wouldn't make him feel like he could talk to her. Or maybe it was the opposite, maybe he didn't feel taken seriously... For these children, this kind of cute "kids stuff" was their hard, daily life and the hardest struggles they had known so far... Or no, that wasn't quite right anymore.  
  
She could not claim that to be the truth hen she could see the EVA looming behind him right behind the glass. She knew only so much about the worries of ordinary youth because of the way her own adolescence had been taken from her... and now she was about to do the same thing to three children of exactly the same age.  
  
"Is it... because you're afraid of the fight, Shinji-kun?"  
  
It was a good thing she didn't know that she had interrupted him at the very moment he thought he had pulled together enough courage to trust her with the question that bothered him so much. In the end she would only have reproached herself more and intimidated him even more in her attempts to get the words out of him.  
  
Of course, his need to share his worries and fears had not diminished in any way, but taking the easy, more predictable route of blaming it on the fight was too tempting for a weak person like him.  
  
"Yes, that's... that's it... that's okay, I... I know there's no other way..."  
  
"How many times. If you make it sound like we forced you, you'll never-"  
  
What was the point of that?  
  
She could just as well have given him a written request to feel miserable and misunderstood again, and to do something stupid, as he did when he rushed towards the angel without consideration for losses and ran away not much later.  
  
Of course she wanted him to understand, otherwise she wouldn't do him any favors, but, the real question was... Was this the time? Was it the right place?  
  
Not even this terribly false woman she had seen herself become could have been seriouis about letting him march onto the battlefield like that.   
  
"I do know, Misato-san..." he replied, with some subliminal irritation. "I know it's my own decision and so on but..."  
  
Again, the question remained stuck to his tongue.  
  
He could not ask when all this horror would be over because he was afraid of the day he would lose his place with the people here, and with it, everything he had ever been good for.... He hadn't really noticed how much EVA had already become an integral part of himself, whose loss would be as destructive as chopping off an arm or a leg.  
  
There were so many, sometimes conflicting things that he was terribly afraid of – Sometimes it seemed like the whole world was against him, and even when that wasn't the case, he couldn't see more in it than just a few scattered points of light.  
  
"I... I know..."  
  
"Yes." Misato said, doing her best to sound warm and understanding.  
  
"I know it's hard for you, and it's not fair. And I know I've told you a thousand times that you have to hang on... But..."  
  
She carefully grabbed his right hand with both of her own.  
  
The head of the operations department could really feel the muscles in his fingers tightening and cramping under her touch, but the recoil that she had almost expected never came, yes, he even actively connected his fingers to hers... it wasn't the first time, so what had she even been afraid of?  
  
She just had to take the next step very gently, very carefully.  
  
"But think of what we're doing all this stuff for."  
  
"Yes, I know. It's about humanity, the lives of all three billion people in this world..."  
  
"It's way more than just three billion."  
  
"I know , there's also the animals and everything-"  
  
"I'm sure Pen-Pen would appreciate your thoughtfulness, but that's not what I mean. It's about far more than three billion people, much, much more... No one can say exactly how many... Do you understand what I mean?"  
  
"Um... what, Misato-san...?" he asked insecurely.  
_

_ "Well, I mean all the people that might be born after us if we can save this world. I'm talking about the future, Shinji-kun."  
  
"The future...? It just feels like a word... I... I don't feel like there could be anything else after this. When I try to imagine it, I see nothing..." Shinji confessed in a rare moment of honesty. It was above all Yui's words that gnawed at his soul here. "And even if I tried to imagine it, I wouldn't know what to look forward to... What kind of a future would even be left for me? Nothing gets better anyway..."  
  
"Now you're just getting yourself worked up. Step back, take a deep breath, and you'll know that's not the case. Even this morning you seemed to see things differently... Listen, Shinji, you're only fourteen. You're practically still a child."  
  
"Exactly... That's the problem... If I know anything about the future, it's just that one angel after another will come, and that I and the others will have to fight again and again and kep putting ourselves in harm's way... I know that my future is full of suffering, pain and loss..." Oh, my goodness. Now he was beginning to to sob. "So why should I think about the future? Is it really the same as running away if I just want to take a break from that once in a while? Do you want me to live in fear all the time?"  
  
"No, of course not.. Not at all, Shinji. You are in a diffucult place in your life right now, not only because of your work as an EVA pilot, but also because of your age, but... Even if it is hard for you right now, I want you to keep in mind that this will all be over sometime..."  
  
"...What do you mean...?"  
  
"I don't know if we've made this fact sufficiently clear before fact until now, but... Why do you always think we always take care to number the angels? Because only so many of them are comming... None of them know how long these struggles will last, maybe months, maybe years... But someday, one distant day, we will have freed ourselves from the angels and be able to defeat them all and live in peace again."  
  
She wasn't sure if in her case she really meant the angels or rather a certain man whose ghost had been haunting her for the past fifteen years, but it probably made little difference to the final analysis.  
  
It came down to the same thing.  
  
"So, Shinji-kun..." she started to detach one hand from his to dry his face with her sleeve. "...save your tears for the day when all these bad things are far, far behind us."  
  
That should have comforted him, but instead it frightened him.  
  
"But... what will become of me if no one needs me anymore...? What... what will I do...?"  
  
But Misato just smiled, "Well, whatever you want."  
  
"Whatever... I want...?" He seemed confused, overwhelmed.  
  
What he wanted was to be able to stay here with the people he knew.....  
  
"Yes, of course, anything you want. If this future comes someday, it's only because you'll have fought for it with your sweat and blood, right? Then it's only fair if it were yours and yours alone... Your life will be only yours and you'll be able to do with it what you want without worrying about NERV or the fate of the earth. When it's all over, you'll be a hero, and I don't know if you've bothered to read through all the boring paperwork, but when it's all over, you pilots will receive enough financial compensation to last you till you're old and grey."  
  
To be honest, her first thought upon seeing those sums of money was that they must not be expecting to actually have to pay them (or at least, had reason to believe that there wouldn't be too many surviving pilots), but it was not a lie, and besides, all is fair in love and war, even if Misato could not have said which of the two cases she was referring to. _

_ If that's what he needed to hold on to right now, then for the moment, she'd gladly present it him with a castle in the sky, even if she had to pay for it by enduring the occasional sting of guilt, and shoulder the awareness that the future she'd conjured up for him was little more than dolled-up hot air.   
  
Not so long ago, Ritsuko had informed her what the boys's real prospects looked like... and that's before taking into account all that vague ominous conspiracy stuff lurking in the periphery. In truth, she was in no position to promise anything him... So how was she doing anything other than trying to placate him with fancy words, like training a circus horse with a carrot-on-a-stick?  
  
"You'd be able to buy your own house at fifteen."  
  
"You think so...?" _

 

_ "Yeah, sure, especially considering how cheap the houses are here, now that everyone's on the run... Well, once you've saved the world, everyone will come back here straight away, of course, but I'm sure you'll find a place somewhere. The building we live on is almost completely empty, and the ones on our floor all have balconies with a nice view."  
  
Only now did it dawn on him what she alluded to. "So... I could stay here? Here in Tokyo-3? With... all the people here, without having to fight...?"  
  
"Yes, certainly. No one will deny you that... So, do you think that you can beat up up the angel up there tonight or whenever he plans to attack? That'd be one less obstacle between you and the life of your dreams..."  
  
The boy nodded a little hesitantly, but still showing a hint of determination.  
  
Since he still seemed a little insecure, Misato decided to prevent any further doubts.  
  
She just had an idea.   
  
"Come with me. I was looking for you because we were all wondering why you were taking so long..."  
  
"What, even Shikinami?"  
  
Misato giggled. "She almost wanted to come and get you herself! I guess she loves teasing you."  
  
"It's not like that, Misato-san..."  
  
"Okay, okay. It's all right. It's all right."  
  
Since his mood seemed to be improving slowly, she decided to refrain from any further playful pestering.  
  
"Even Rei is back by now." She told him instead. "The Commander just dropped her off, so you just missed him..."  
  
Well, not exactly.   
  
But he didn't exactly want to talk about that.   
  
Misato interpreted the lowering of his gaze as his typical reaction to mentions of his father and left the subject alone.  
  
He was only too grateful for it and tried once again to bring his face into a halfway presentable condition using his free hand- He'd rather not deal with Asuka calling him a crybaby on top of everything else-   
  
Instead, he clung more firmly to Misato's hand and let himself be led back into the small, triangular room, where Asuka and Rei sat on the floor, not too far from each other, just where Misato had left them, though Asuka, who had since dug out her handheld game again, had made a deliberate point of facing the opposite direction. _

_ Unlike the quiet, blue-haired girl who closed her book when the other two arrived, the Second Child didn't seem to want to look at her roommates either, which she had to do when Misato and Shinji sat down on the floor across from them, and first stretched and leaned back a little.  
  
"Okay, I figured that since we have to stand guard here for now, we might at least use the time for a little team building exercise, so we can get vto know each other better."  
  
"Are we in kindergarten?" Asuka was outraged. "I think I know more than enough about these two dupes here by now."  
  
"That's not exactly a ladies' way of putting it." Misato scolded.  
  
Asuka's answer consisted of little more than a vaguely offended “Hmpf!”   
  
"Let's do it like this: Let's go clockwise, just the way we're sitting now, and share our plans for the future!" _

 

_ Asuka was dubfounded. "Huh...?" _

 

_ "Let's hear all your goals and dreams! For when you guys grow up, I mean. You've certainly thought about that, haven't you? _

_ I want you all to know why we're doing all this here and what you're fighting for. In the end, the reason we're all working so hard here is so that you and your classmates can have a world where you can grow up and make your dreams come true... So what are your big plans? What are you gonna do after the angels are defeated...?" _

 

_ "Why don't you start with yourself?" Asuka retorted. "Or are you afraid that we'll laugh at you when trying to tell us that you still plan on finding a husband at your age...?" _

 

_ "VERY FUNNY, Asuka." Misato warned, trying to silence her roommate with a razor-sharp look. "I already have a job." _

 

_ "Yes, and so do we. That's such a stupid question! 'What are you gonna be when you grow up.'.... Unlike most of the average silly people my age, I've _ _ already  _ _ grown up, I've  _ _ already _ _ become something, and I did it way faster than most people, if I might say.  _

_ I'm a Captain, a member of an elite unit that controls highly specialized combat machines, and I've saved all three billion asses on this planet more than once! What else do you expect be to accomplish? Is it enough if I run for Chancellor, or would I have to be the first human on Mars for you to be satisfied?“ _

 

_ There was already a noticeable pinch of anger in Asuka's words - and rightly so! What she wanted to be later on? Misato better be kidding! It should have been obvious that she was  _ _ not _ _ a silly little child anymore. It wasn't her fault that she was still stuck being fourteen. She had trained all her life for nothing but this time, these moments, this opportunity here. _

 

_ She didn't even want to think that all this could become useless one day... _

 

_ At least she suceeded in making her self-proclaimed guardian leave her alone and turn her attention to someone who really needed it: _

 

_ "Aha, I see... The young lady is very ambitious. How about you, Shinji-kun? What are your big plans?" _

 

_ "I... I never... really thought about it..." _

 

_ Back when he lived with his teacher, one day had been like another and it had never seemed like anything would ever change. Past, present and future had little meaning if they were all uniform. Altogether he had never been a dreamer or a planner - he let the days come, tried to bear them somehow and hoped that they would soon be over again. His teacher had thought he might have what it takes to be a virtuoso, but he didn't want to mention that here, they would only laugh at him anyway, it sounded ridiculous and artificially snobbish... and he also realized that that wasn't true... he wasn't so stupid that he would believe such transparent attempts at comforting him out of pity and obligation. To set goals, you needed the skills to achieve them, and you could never truly escape the possibility of failure. . _

 

_ No thanks. _

_ Ambition was something he simply did not possess. He was glad he just managed to get through the day.  
  
What would be the point? Everything he did was determined by others anyway. His father had sent him away, his teacher had suggested that he learn the cello, his father had brought him back here and had also put him in the EVA...  
  
"Are you stupid or what...?" that redhead girl had found something to talk about again, and probably, he deserved it no other way.  
  
No matter what she said now, she would most likely be right. "How can you have so little ambition!"  
  
She jumped up to look down on him and pointed with her right forefinger exactly between his eyes. "Listen! If you don't keep up and don't have a competitive spirit, you're going to the dogs, _ _ kapitsch _ _? Nowadays only talent, diligence and competitiveness count, just because you were lucky here thanks to your your daddy, you should not assume that you will continue to get every handed to you, you idiot! Real life is a little different."  
  
"Well, our Asuka has a point here, even if I would like to say that besides everything you have already mentioned, soft skills also play a certain role, such as team spirit and manners... and I'm afraid Shin-chan is way ahead of you when it comes to those."  
  
"Says who! Why don't you check with the school to see which one of us has the most-"  
  
"It's all right, Asuka. You don't always have to make everything into a competition, success is nice and all, but you should always realize why you want to be successful and make sure you're not missing out on the finer things in life because of it..."  
  
"You'd know a lot about those, wouldn't you`?..."  
  
"What are you implying?!"  
  
"Uh..."  
  
"Yes?"  
  
In view of the two obviously irritated ladies who clearly demanded an answer, Shinji had to swallow before he could think of speaking further.  
  
What he originally wanted to say had long since evaporated from the twists of the old raisin in his skull, so he was forced to turn on his creativity to come up with something new.  
  
Seeking help, he inspected his field of vision, grateful for the light blue spot in the corner of his eye, which quickly sparked a good idea.  
  
"Um... aren't we going to ask about Ayanami's plans?"  
  
Of course he had been seriously interested in the answer to this question, it was a practical opportunity to learn something about her personally, especially since he could not imagine at all what she would probably answer.  
  
Nevertheless, he began to regret his words a little when the glances still fixed on him moven on just as quickly as they had come, and shifted to the white-clad, porcelain-like form of the First Child - it really had not been his intention to somehow put her in a pickle.  
  
Parallel to the lively exchanges of the Katsuragi household, the blue-haired girl had been sitting there quietly and motionlessly, if not slightly bent, staring slightly at the floor, in a subtle way that probably only Shinji was able to distinguish from her usual apathy - and he wasn't quite sure that he wasn't just imagining something, and expecting such a reaction from her where none was actually present. _

 

_ Ironically, he was only now to realize that despite their frequent quarrels, something like a togetherness had developed between the inhabitants of the Katsuragi flat. Although it forged from such disparate components, they led to a shared sense of community, which, in turn, had just now caused someone else to be almost forgotten about, like a slightly dusty, decorative ceramic figurine. _

 

_ Rei herself did not think much about something like "belonging," of course, and what was actually going on with her at that moment and delaying her answer was in fact very different from what Shinji suspected there - it was just that at that time she knew a few things more than the other people present in that room. _

 

_ Some things that were far above their security clearance. The question as to what was to become of her in the future was once she had never considered before in her life, because she had known its exact answer from the very beginning, without even the slightest room for uncertainty. _

_ For her, the steady approach of Third Impact had been a basic fact of life, like the fact that the sky was blue, the ocean red and the trees green, so that it would never have occurred to her to question her Creator's plans either - according to her worldview, it would be like doubting the return of the morning at night and cursing the Almighty for taking the moon disk from the sky in the evening. _

 

_ She had always known that Third Impact was coming, and that she would be the one to trigger it. This is how the Commander had planned it, and this is how it had been prophesied eons ago. _

 

_ So to think about a time afterwards made as little sense to her as the question about a point more northern than the North Pole - time in the classical sense would not exist beyond this fateful day, and least of all for her, considering the role she would play - Shinji and the others were speaking of a future that would never come. _

 

_ This thought did not cause her any feelings of guilt or remorse - fulfilling her task was a matter of course for her, almost as if it were a natural event that simply happened to affect her - and you did not resent the storm on the horizon, even if you took precautions to avoid it. Even if she  _ _ had _ _ thought about it, the Commander's words would soon have come to her mind, words which hadn't spoken to her, but uttered in her presence, about the fact that there was no other way. _

 

_ And yet, the thought was that the others were probably looking forward to things that they didn't know to be impossible might have put a slight damper on her moon - even if she could not have said why. She didn't attach much importance to it anyway. _

 

_ But now an answer was demanded of her and without this having been a conscious decision based on certain principles, but rather because she had always been obedient and basically honest by nature, it did not even occur to her to quickly invent a lie; so she revealed the truth as far as she did not have to conceal it: "I never saw a point in making such plans. I doesn't make sense to make decisions about circumstances that have yet to be determined. No one can predict how much damage the angels' attacks will cause, and it is very likely that some of us will not be alive at this time, including myself. " _

 

_ She said that without much emotion, as if she were reading a page from the emergency regulations booklet. It did not matter more to her either, it was simply a fact that her existence would end shortly after the arrival of the last angel - it seemed incomprehensible to her how suddenly the facial expressions of the other people present suddenly changed before she had even stopped speaking. _

 

_ "Yes yes! Careful that you don' cut yourself on that edge!" Asuka burst out angrily. "Just be as pessimistic as you want, that doesn't make you any cooler, nor does it make you smarter or better than us! Are you implying that I can't get my job done, little princess?" _

 

_ "Asuka, stop it." Misato interceded. The unembellished, sober truth had little to do with the calming sunshine fantasies that she had spun together for Shinji, and when the silent girl voiced it, it had hit the bull's eye with her. _

 

_ But the most intense reaction was that of Third Child, who immediately moved a little closer to his blue-haired comrade and apparently felt obliged to talk to her. This time he overcame his entrapments much faster than on the moonlit launching platforms at Futagoyama. _

 

_ "A-But Ayanami...! Don't say that..." _

 

_ Misato could imagine that he had understood the truth of her words as well as she did. But even so, the boy tried to play the strong man for her - albeit quite unsuccessfully. He was simply not made for it and was too concerned by her words to be able to hide the fact that he realized their implications and simply did not want to admit them. "...You mustn't..."  
  
Rei looked at him in minimal astonishment. In a sense, this situation reminded her of the incident on Futagoyama - once again she didn't know what to do with his emotional outburst, although her meagre knowledge of human nature was now enough to imagine that he he was somehow expressing concern about her person.  
  
That in itself was something she could remotely associate with warmth and security, but made sure that she didn't want to be the reason why he was so... out of her mind, and didn't help her much without her knowing the reason for his reaction.  
  
"...What's the matter...?" she asked.  
  
Somehow this didn't have the effect she had hoped for. She began to wish that she was more familiar with such situations and interactions.... Until now she had never required such skills to carry out her tasks but now they were all the more missing.  
  
"I'm... I'm scared too, but-"  
  
"Scared...? You think I'm afraid...? Then you can rest assured. I am not afraid." Said the First Child, apparently completely calm. It seemed hard to see who was supposed to be comforting whom.  
  
"Then why... why do you say such a thing...?"  
  
"It is the truth, isn't it...?"  
  
Misato could see clearly that Shinji was at his wit's end and finally no longer knew what to say - so she decided to take the initiative and save the situation before Asuka, who had been looking at the two for some time with an unreadable facial expression, had the opportunity to make one of her usual snappy comments.  
  
"But Rei... of course, what you're saying is the truth, as unfortunate as it may be, but... What if we actually pull it off, and you all survive? What would you do then?"  
  
The blue-haired girl turned her unfathomable eyes in her direction, but remained silent.  
  
"You... haven't thought about it either, have you...?"  
  
Rei nodded.  
  
Misato sighed, "Well... all three of you are still young, so you still have quite a while to think about it... But you know, Shinji-kun... Asuka... Rei... I want you all to know what we are doing it for and that you know that there is light at the end of the tunnel. It's not hell. Purgatory, at best."  
  
  
"You are and remain an eternal optimist, aren't you, Misato?"  
  
"R-Ritsuko!"  
  
Neither the children nor their superiors seemed to hear the hissing of the automatic door, through which the blonde now entered the room sipped slightly at her coffee cup - it was a bit strange that she was carrying another cup of coffee in the other hand, even though its function was soon explained when she passed the second cup to Misato.  
  
"Here, a little refreshment for you."  
  
"Thank you very much."  
  
"You're welcome. I just wanted to see how you were getting along with these little monsters." Joked Ritsuko.  
  
"It's fine... You'd better tell me what the angel's doing."  
  
"So far nothing. I'm afraid it's gonna be a while."  
  
"Darnit..." Misato commented.  
  
"What is it...? Are you starting to get withdrawal symptoms...?"  
  
"Very funny..." quipped the head of operations.  
_

_ Although he didn't protest loudly, Shinji's enthusiasm was pretty limited - he had already got to bed late yesterday, and thanks to the angel he might have to remain on standby until three in the morning or so today... and then there would bw a fight on top of all that, with a tough enemy who wouldn't give him a centimetre... _

 

_ Asuka, on the other hand, remained calm and rose to find a practical solution: "Then I guess they'll bring me a coffee too...?" _

 

_ "No way!" Misato nipped the whole thing in the bud before Ritsuko had a chance to answer. "You're too young for that." _

 

_ "Hypocrisy! You always drink tons of this stuff. And of much worse things!" _

 

_ "I'm afraid you're a rather modest role model in this respect." Ritsuko added jokingly reprimanding. _

 

_ Misato had understood and was already sufficiently embarassed - sometimes she really wondered whose side her supposed "best friend" was actually on. Remaining outwardly relaxed, she now pulled out her forefinger: "Even the good old Saint Benedict is said to have told his monks: Stick to what your superiors say, not what they do. And besides, unlike you, Asuka, I'm an adult!" _

 

_ "Oh, really? Sometimes I have my doubts..." said Asuka and Ritsuko unison. "And besides..." continued the former. "Should you have slowly realized that I stopped being a little child quite a while ago!" She put her hands on her hips to emphasize their curves. "...drastic situations require drastic measures!" _

 

_ Ritsuko shook her head with a smile. _

 

_ "Well, before that happens, we should probably give you the chance to take a nap..." _

 

_ "But... What if the angel attacks in the meantime...?" _

 

_ "Hm, that is indeed a problem..." _

 

_ "Or maybe not." Misato spoke when she also stood up from the floor. _

 

_ "How about you take your naps in the EVAs? As far as I know the control chairs are supposed to be comfy enough, and it's warm in there, too - If the angel shows up, all we have to do is send you a little noise over the intercom, and you're all ready to go!"! _

 

_ \---- _

_  
When he thought about it later, it seemed very strange to him how quickly he had found his way into a deep, highly restful sleep, despite the tension that came with the expectation that he could be called into battle at any moment , and also the fact that he had to be content with the heart of a gigantic biomechanical war machine instead of a cuddly bed, a being in front of which he had always been horrified, and in whose inside it stank and tasted latently of blood. _

 

_ Not that he was complaining about getting a bitterly needed good night's sleep, but the whole thing was undeniably uncanny - this eighty-meter monster was not supposed to be comfy, there had to be something really wrong with him for him to find a claustrophobic-looking metal capsule relaxing - and even worse, it seemed to him as if this was the most restful sleep that his constant visions, schoolwork, his duties as an EVA pilot and last but not least the general condition of his nerves had allowed him lately, no matter how grotesque it sounded... _

 

_ Just before falling asleep, on the threshold between slumber and wakefulness, it was almost as if he had been welcomed by warm, soft arms made from a of pouring cozy warmth, and at the very edge of his consciousness he even thought he heard the sounds of lovingly purred lullabies that triggered a recognition somewhere in the depths of his soul... _

 

_ Actually, he was supposed to dismiss it as a dream or imagination, perhaps a side effect of being connected to the EVA while asleep, but he had already sunk too far into his dream world to do so at the time, too close was the bubbling and whirring of the knowledge that he might not be living through all of this for the first time... _

 

_ The voice that seemed to whisper to him that this had meaning was none other than his own, and the melodies of her voice continued in those of his cello as this dream continued exactly where the last one left off; He was sitting in this chair, in this shady music hall, which he was not allowed to know and yet  _ _ had  _ _ to know, and struggled, although the illuminated sign of the exit was hardly far from him... This situation... that was a bit like... how he constantly exposed himself to all this suffering and went on, and yet did not leave, although he had had the opportunity. _

 

_ Is that what all this was about...? The key to interpreting the metaphor that some higher power was trying to communicate to him? _

 

_ The way he struggled, had struggled and would still struggle, desperately seeking words of appreciation...? _

 

 

_ The sudden sound of applause almost seemed like an answer to his unspoken thoughts, which made him pause instantly. _

 

_ He hadn't said anything... Those thoughts hadn't had a chance to leave his skull and get through to anyone else, and yet there was applause, an outside source, from outside this closed room... _

 

_ Instantly he looked in the direction from which the unexpected praise had come, into the dazzling bright light of the entrance, where the silhouette of a short-haired woman stood with one hand at the door frame and seemed to look towards him. _

 

_ He was deeply astonished, on the one hand, because there was suddenly a strange person standing there, but there was also something else going on subliminally, something that let him know that this was important, that no other person could simply step into his dreams, and thus also implicitly that she was  _ _ real _ _ , and not just one of the many webs and representations of his inner universe. _

 

_ On the other hand, beyond his amazement, he also felt a strong emotional response building up in him, an aspiration that almost seemed to break out of his fingertips, a kind of knowledge that she knew the answer, that she was someone who could help, that he was so happy to see her, and that she could actually use the short time he had with her, and that she could fix everything. _

 

_ Part of him seemed to want to leave the rest of himself there to jump up and hug her, but his present self, his ignorance of this woman's identity, and the notion that she might not actually be here, that this is what should have 'happened' if he didn't deviate from the déjà vu impressions that now seemed to dissonantly hang in his field of vision, made him hesitate... and already a blink of an eye later their vague appearance seemed to have disappeared, and he was not a bit smarter. _

 

 

 

 

_ At that moment the vision ended and did not return, just as little as the feeling of exhaustion and effort, the sweat and the déjà-vus that otherwise brought with it, yes, even the usual restless storms in his own soul seemed soothed by a divine balm and evaporated in favor of a vague one, a pleasant impression of peace and security, which he had not known for a long time, an afterglow of innocence, security and carelessness, like a sun-soaked memory from a time when everything still seemed to be in order... _

 

 

_ Was that human warmth...? It couldn't be... The very thought was absurd. Why would she be  _ _ here? _

 

_ And yet, she was. He had never felt her consciously, but she seemed to have always been here, and only through his own excitement and carelessness had he not yet noticed her... _

 

_ So beautifully warm... and almost weightless... almost as if a familiar person with a well-meaning nudge wanted to force him to simply drift through the sheer endless expanse of the connection and disappear into the depths... _

 

 

_ "Don't worry, my boy. You're doing very well so far. There's nothing to be afraid of. This time... I will give you the bright future I promised you..." _

 

_ \--- _

 

_ That night, Mayumi Yamagishi's body temperature far exceeded the level at which human beings remained viable. Due to all the interference and distance, a certain accumulation of entropy could not be avoided - the Angel of Illusions had to run the source of his power at full speed to complete his transformation and take possession of the promised land for his peers. _

 

_ Even more curious and physically confusing was the fact that the student's organism did not stop functioning – Under normal circumstances, her insides should have been cooked through a long time ago. _

_ Depending on how on defined it, a parasite was a creature that tended to weaken its host, but it was generally not in their interest to kill it, and as an intelligent parasite the ambassador was able to conserve this shell - at least as long as he still had use for it.... He had no pity for the Lillim, they seemed to be all their own symbionts or parasites anyway, sucking, milking and eating each other, or feeding each other; The way in which they were almost as likely to destroy or support each other was almost disgusting.... It did not trust these beings to have enough spirit at all to distinguish existence from non-existence - they were not much different from their distant relatives, those green entities that stuck statically to the sky in a place to live from the sun - in his opinion, these were even to be classified as higher life forms similar to the angels themselves, because they existed at least apparently autonomously... _

 

_ This bizarre, disgusting world of the descendants of the Lillith, who constantly ate herself up and bathed in her own excrement... It deserved to perish. _

 

_ ___________________ _

_ (1) Are Ravensburg Board Games even a thing outside Germany? Eh, we can say that Misato got introduced to them while she was Asuka's supervisor at NERV Berlin.  _

_ (2) For even more tales from „The Hard Life Of Shinji Ikari“, be sure to check out chapter 2.15: [IMAGO]... when it's translated, of course.  _

 

 


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